Paper Airplanes
by EmciiSquared
Summary: -Oneshots- Starscream, Skywarp, and Thundercracker, the Command Trine, have their share of stories to tell. These stories, however, are not among their proudest moments...
1. Perfection

A/N: This is going to be an interesting collage of a fanfiction. It will consist of many ficlets centered on different random prompts. These prompts will come from various 'random prompt generators' around the internet. :] These ficlets will, of course, star Starscream, Thundercracker, and Skywarp- though interaction with other cons and Autobots is likely. These chapters will vary in length, quality, and genre. :) Posting all of these little ficlets separately would be superfluous, so it will all be compiled here. A fanfiction made of brain-vomit.

Brain vomit _everywhere._

I should also note that this story is slash free.

Disclaimer: Transformers are spiffy, but not my property.

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><p><strong>Title:<strong> Perfection

**Characters: **Starscream, Thundercracker, & Skywarp

**Genre:** Humor

**Summary:** Starscream recruited his subordinates to fix his door, but if he expected perfection, he chose the wrong jets...

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><p>Perfection<p>

"It's crooked."

Starscream's voice was scrutinizing, arms crossed and optics narrowed as he stared at the newly installed door. Thundercracker crossed his own arms, stepping back to examine the door from afar.

"No it's not." The blue Seeker concluded after a long moment.

"You are obviously not looking at the same door that I am looking at, Thundercracker, otherwise you would notice that it is leaning to the left and off center." Starscream sniffed, having only eyes for the supposedly crooked door that offended him so much. He looked repulsed. "Fix it."

The day had been very unkind to Starscream's door- at least, unkind to the door that had been there merely two hours before. Much to Starscream's dismay, his previous door had first been graciously given a hole in the shape of Ramjet's head after a Conehead-Free-For-All outside of his dwelling. The new hole was soon discovered by Rumble and Frenzy, who never passed up an opportunity to harass the Air Commander. After pressing their luck and calling Starscream a 'tubby cretinous spunkbubble'. He had no idea what it meant, but regardless, two new silhouettes decorated the door soon after. After another ten minutes, word had spread, a faction had united together under a common goal, and the room was filled with callous comments and a few brave hands reaching in to deliver obscene gestures. Starscream, who was always eager make friends, wasted no time ripping off two fingers, delivering several shots from his nullray, and chasing them en masse down the hallway with a vial of concentrated nitric acid.

After an ill-placed and sarcastic comment about Starscream's 'service with a smile', Thundercracker and Skywarp were immediately given the task of replacing the door. So with welder in hand and Skywarp's unrelenting complaints of not getting paid enough, they did as they were told.

Thundercracker uncrossed his arms in favor of placing his hands on his hips, looking thoroughly unimpressed.

"I measured the dimensions four times, Starscream. I used a laser and a leveler. Trust me- it's straight."

Starscream had a look of insufferable superiority on his face as he gave it another look over. "Then you apparently do not know how to work them because this installation job is mediocre at best. Redo it."

"You are delusional."

"And you are obviously incapable of doing anything right."

Thundercracker clenched his fists, optics narrowing. "I am not going to fix what is not broken."

"And I will not accept anything less than perfection! It reflects badly on_ me_ when _your_ laziness affects your ability to properly follow orders!"

Thundercracker opened his mouth to retort further, but Skywarp's voice cut in before he could utter a sound.

"TC's right, Screamer. It looks like a door to me. A level, centered one." Skywarp stepped forward, examining the door from several angles. "That is one good looking door. Made of the finest alloy a mech can steal. Some fine Con' is going to be wondering where his door is pretty soon.'"

"If I wanted your input, I would have asked for it!" Starscream spouted. "Evidently your inferior optics are on the fritz, because my scans are showing that it is leaning point-five degrees to the left and is installed to the right of the midpoint."

Thundercracker and Skywarp shared a look.

"Maybe you're lopsided." Skywarp suggested.

"If you do not shut up right this instant, you _will_ be lopsided."

"I like this door." Skywarp chose to ignore Starscream's comment and replace it with his own observation. "I like it better than all of the other doors in the base. It has character. Just look at this scuff mark—it looks like a banana."

Thundercracker frowned, ignoring Skywarp and ignoring the urge to ask what in Vector Sigma's name a banana was.

"I am not reinstalling the door. If you want it redone, you do it yourself, Starscream. We did our part."

Starscream drew himself up. "You will do as I tell you to do. Need I remind you that along with being your commander, that I am also the second in command? If anyone in this sad excuse of an army is going to follow my orders, it is going to be you two especially. If I tell you to fly in V formation-"

"We form a conga line." Skywarp smiled. Starscream glared.

"You fly in perfect V formation and do not break it until I say otherwise. If I tell you to fetch me energon-"

"We put a weasel in it."

"Shut your vocalizer, Skywarp!" Starscream snapped. "If I tell you to fetch me energon, you get me two cubes of energon of the best available quality! Likewise, if I tell you to fix my crooked, lopsided door-"

"We refuse and try to change the subject by telling you it has a scuffmark in the shape of a banana."

"You will FIX the door." Starscream said, ignoring Skywarp altogether. "I expect you to respect me, for one day I will be-"

"The leader of the Decepticons. Yeah. We know." Thundercracker grumble dryly. "Good to know that you will be spending your time so productively. Specifically, taking time out of your busy schedule to discipline us for 'that one time we refused to fix a perfectly functional and straight door.' You are going to be a fantastic leader, Starscream."

Starscream bristled at the sarcasm. Skywarp grinned.

"Brings up a good point. I'm really curious- do you really keep track of all of the times that you say you're going to 'make us pay'? You still haven't done anything about that time I clogged your thrusters with porridge. You threatened to bludgeon my head with a minibot. I must say, I have not been bludgeoned with any minibots lately."

"It's not too late, you insufferable wingnut! When the time comes, I will personally see to it that you two will never defy orders from me again!"

"Well now I really don't want to fix the door." Thundercracker cut in.

"Maybe if you said 'please' more often, we would be more willing to make your life easier." Skywarp said, shrugging a shoulder.

"I will do no such thing! I should never have to say 'please'. I should simply have to give the order and have it followed without question or hesitation!"

"'Please' helps." Skywarp nodded.

"You two listen to me. I WILL be the leader of the Decepticons, but as it is, I am the second in command!"

For the umpteenth time that day, Skywarp and Thundercracker shared a dry look before doing what they did best during one of Starscream's rants. Skywarp zoned out, and Thundercracker listened for key words.

"-A mere step below Megatron on the hierarchy. You know better than anyone that everything Megatron knows, I know. Everything Megatron plans, it goes through me. My opinions are of great value and superior to that of your own. I should not have to remind you that I am also the Aerial Commander—YOUR Aerial Commander. As your commander, I have the right to order you to self-destruct if I see fit!"

"I don't remember seeing that in my contract." Thundercracker mumbled, looking exasperated.

"Yeah, you're the _'Air Commander'_". Skywarp said, pointing a single finger at the red Seeker. "You command us in the air." He pointed two fingers towards the ceiling. "We." He gestured to the three of them. "Are three miles below sea level. Kind of hard to 'air command' underwater."

"Do not get smart with me, you rusty muffler!" Starscream screeched. "You know what I am talking about!"

"Rusty muffler….?"

"Skywarp… Smart?"

Skywarp tapped his lip component with his finger, looking contemplatively at the door in question. "You know, Screamer… Maybe it would be better if we just took out the door and left it open. You know—so there's room for your_ fat head_."

"You slagging-!" Starscream paused, a hand over his optics as he tried to regain his composure. "Are you truly incapable of following such simple orders?"

"We're not incapable. We just don't want to." Skywarp smiled sweetly.

"Not to mention you are being absolutely unreasonable. Don't you have anything better to do?" Thundercracker audibly let out a breath, suddenly looking drained.

"You should order us to do something useful. Like to go play X-box." Skywarp expressed. "That sounds more pleasant than blowing myself up. Or fixing your banana-door."

"No, you will fix this door." Starscream made a face, features darkening.

"After we play X-box?"

"Don't be stupid." Starscream sneered.

"Don't tell him to stop being stupid, Screamer. It's all he knows." Thundercracker scolded.

"Hey!"

"You two are only stalling!"

"Well yeah, because now I want to play videogames." Skywarp said shortly, as if it were obvious..

"Not to mention the door is perfectly fine as it is. It's not like _anyone_ in their sane mind is going to go around measuring random doors to make sure they are level and centered. _No one does that_." Thundercracker stressed.

Starscream opened his mouth to retort.

"I said _sane_ mind, you kuku clock. You don't count."

"You are teetering on a very thin line right now, you two." Starscream said with narrowed optics. "If you cannot even follow simple orders, how is it that you can retain your position in the Aerial Elite?"

"Um… I'd like to buy a vowel."

"Shut up, Skywarp! Primus, how aren't you dead yet?" Starscream threw out his arms in agitation.

"I'm an Aerial Elite."

Starscream looked as if he was on the verge of throttling his purple wingmate, hands clawed in front of him as if contemplating whether or not to wrap them around Skywarp's neck. "I… am going to hurt you."

"And I am going to go play X-box."

"You will do no such thing! You-" he gestured harshly "are going to stay here with Thundercracker and FIX. MY. DOOR. That is an order!"

Thundercracker scowled, wings twitching in irritation as he glanced at the perfectly straight door. Skywarp looked to be on the brink of throwing a tantrum.

"But it's your door!" Skywarp cried, hands . "_Your_ door is not_ my_ responsibility!"

"No, but your obedience is!"

"You know, Screamer. Sometimes I think you would implode if you didn't have something to whine about." Skywarp huffed, leaning against the wall in defeat. "I question your state of mind. This is slave labor. I know my rights!"

Starscream's wings went rigid as his glare became dangerous.

Thundercracker shook his head. "Would you just measure the door again, Starscream? I swear it's not as bad as you think."

"Absolutely not. How can you expect me to live in a room that has a lopsided door! This is absolutely unacceptable—when I tell you to do something, I expect nothing less than what I deserve. That goes for the installation of my door!"

"Well, in that case, allow me to rip off the door and beat your senseless with it." Thundercracker said dryly.

Starscream snarled. "Cute."

"You know, there's a name for this. The humans call it Obsessive Compulsive Disorder."

Starscream recoiled. "You _dare_ compare my aspiration for perfection to a human disorder! Do you have a death wish or is your cranial plating you denser than I even thought?"

Skywarp grinned. "Sheesh, don't lubricate yourself. TC's actually pretty spot-on."

Starscream clenched his fists, optics twitching in disgust. "You… you dare… I can't… you can't possibly…"

"I think you broke him, TC. Look at him twitch. I've never seen that before…"

"It was an observation. I already know you're a lost cause, Screamer." Thundercracker sighed, optics now on the new door. "Look. Even though there is _nothing to fix_, we'll reinstall your fragging door."

Skywarp pressed off against the wall, looking as if he just inhaled a goose. "We'll do what, now?"

Thundercracker held up a hand placidly, closing his optics. "It will be perfectly centered and perfectly straight. I will measure it _eight_ times this time. But… If you ask us to do this again, I swear I will ram your head through it, melt it down, shape it like a stylus, and shove it up your skidplate."

Starscream looked insulted, but drew himself up to his full height. "I will be back in 45 terrestrial minutes."

"It will be done in 30."

"I expect it to be perfectly centered. Perfectly straight."

"I would rather have my wings chewed off by an Insecticon than give you anything but the perfection you deserve."

"Your sarcasm is unappreciated."

"Your existence is unappreciated."

Starscream's engines snarled, though he ignored the biting comment. He turned his back towards his wingmates, only taking a few steps before pausing.

"If you ever… _ever _compare me to an Earth-germ again, Thundercracker, I will personally see to it that you are remodeled into a refrigerator." And with that, Starscream began to stride away purposely.

Skywarp slumped, slack-jawed. Thundercracker glared at his commander's retreating form.

"Why can't he ever threaten to remodel us into the Batmobile?" Skywarp sulked.

Thundercracker exhaled slowly, turning his attention to the door. "If he wants straight and centered, we'll give him straight and centered. It will be a perfect fit for a fragging anal-retentive tyrant."

"I assume you mean Screamer."

"But of course."

They shared a look after a long moment of silence.

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><p>Starscream began his walk towards the lodging sector of the Nemesis, datapad in hand and his sense of self-importance high. It had been roughly 30 terrestrial minutes since he had left his defiant subordinates to tend to his door, though he knew that even if they were not finished reinstalling it, he would be perfectly content to sit back and harass them until they were finished.<p>

To mess up something as simple and primitive as a door…

Starscream shook his head, contemplating how they had managed to make their way so far up in ranks without even a remotely functioning CPU. He blamed Megatron, really, for valuing brute force over cunning. Because of this, he was the one who had to suffer. He was the one who spent so much of his valuable time correcting stupid mistakes, tearing Skywarp from videogames, pranks, and squishie-kicking activities, and putting up with Thundercracker's brooding nature and moral dilemmas. They were flawed. They did their jobs well and he trusted them to perform impeccably in the heat of battle, but they were below him in every way. In addition, trying to communicate with them was like trying to communicate with a floor panel.

"Hmph." He vocalized out loud, taking a left towards his living quarters, doing a double take as he passed an irritated and slightly confused Astrotrain standing in front of his doorless quarters.

Regardless of their unintelligence, he had long since learned to put them in their place. He knew inferior beings and their simplistic nature. He knew how they yielded to power. As long as he stressed his authority over his wingmates, they would always bend to his will. Only he was intelligent, strong, and cunning enough to lead the Decepticons. Only he would be able to revive the true Decepticon cause. He would bring order and conquest.

He smirked, glancing over his datapad once more.

Yes. Even though his subordinates did not want to admit it, they knew that he was the greater one. They knew he held the power. Their pathetic attempts to hold on to their pitiable strands of dignity were futile.

He was superior.

He placed his datapad into subspace, rounding the corner to his quarters. He stopped dead in his tracks, smirk vanishing as he stared at his newly reinstalled door.

His door was perfectly straight and perfectly centered. Just as Thundercracker promised.

But it had been installed sideways.


	2. Substance

A/N: I just felt like writing pure banter. x]

This is TC and Skywarp-centric, no slash, just Skywarp being a prat.

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><p><strong>Title:<strong> Substance

**Characters: **Thundercracker & Skywarp

**Genre:** Humor

**Summary:** Skywarp consumes weird things, but Thundercracker does not appreciate his efforts to share.

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><p>Substance<p>

Thundercracker kind of expected to see Skywarp that day. He saw Skywarp every day in one way or another, whether he liked it or not.

What he did not expect was for Skywarp to use the door.

Thundercracker swiveled quickly in his chair at the sound of his door sliding open without his permission, but relaxed slightly upon seeing the familiar black and purple paintjob of a certain menace. He was immediately suspicious.

Skywarp never used the door, and he told him so.

"You remembered how to open a door?" Thundercracker quirked an optic ridge. "Well I'm impressed."

There was no reply, though, as Skywarp half walked, half stumbled into the room, arms folded across the lower region of his frame, looking quite ill.

Thundercracker tilted his head suspiciously, setting aside the datapad in his hand. "The slag is wrong with you?" he mumbled, leaning slightly forward in his chair.

Skywarp opened his mouth, but closed it before a syllable could be uttered. He took a moment to consider his response.

"I just consumed 48 gallons of crude oil."

Thundercracker visibly recoiled. If he had been expecting a strange answer, he had not been disappointed.

"… What?"

"48 gallons. Crude oil. The unprocessed stuff that makes you gassy."

Skywarp was looking at him expectantly, though Thundercracker could only seem to stare and blink stupidly for a very long moment, quite unable to find his voice. He realized that he did not even have anything noteworthy to say once he was finally over his initial shock. Still, Skywarp stared at him expectantly, waiting for him to once again make everything better. But Thundercracker was not a medic- he did not know exactly how unprocessed oil would affect a Cybertronian's systems. Obviously it was not a good idea, seeing as though his Wingmate looked unwell and had used _the door._

His optics flickered in thought, carefully choosing his next words.

"I…" He paused. "I honestly do not know why I am surprised."

Skywarp apperantly took that as his cue to explain himself, regardless of whether or not Thundercracker had any desire to listen. Taking a few steps closer, the purple seeker tightened his arms around himself and began to talk very animatedly for a mech who looked dead on his feet. Thundercracker listened painfully, though he knew that he would regret it.

"So me and Dirge were on patrol, right? And like what always happens when we're on patrol together, we started to inflict bodily harm on each other. Which is always, always fun, by the way. After trying to impale things on his head for a while, while he tried to _defile me_ like the slagging creeper he is, he got tired of existing and offlined himself with a blunt object."

Thundercracker said nothing. Skywarp laughed harshly, waving his hand dismissively.

"… I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Sorry to get your hopes up." Skywarp flashed him a charming grin. "So like I was saying, I wish he had tried to offline himself with a blunt object, but as it so happened, he just decided to test my superior potency and robustness. My potent robustness." Skywarp shifted, suddenly looking somewhat uncomfortable as his story progressed. "So… he told me that he'd give me 20 credits if I drank 45 gallons of crude oil. So, right then and there I-"

"Let me guess—" Thundercracker cut in, an optic ridge raised jadedly. "-you rejected the dare like a responsible, rational mech and decided against stooping down to Dirge's level of indecency in favor of preserving your dignity and well-being. Then you walked away without hurting anyone, read a book, helped one of the Cassetticons reach the energon dispenser, and spent the rest of your day not saying or doing anything stupid."

"Slag no!" Skywarp barked another harsh laugh. "I exceeded expectations and drank _48_ gallons! And look-" Skywarp held out his hand. "- I'm 20 credits richer and 48 gallons heavier. Heh, that conehead is such a sucker."

Thundercracker stared at his Wingmate as if he could not believe what he was hearing. While Skywarp smiled proudly, Thundercracker looked torn. He stood up slowly, deciding against breaking the fact that it was not Dirge who was the sucker to the proud, darker Seeker. Still, he found himself speechless. He hesitated, reaching his hand forward as if to place a consoling hand on his shoulder, but pulled it back, mouth set in a straight line.

"You just… you are…" Thundercracker rested a hand on his helm, sighing. "You are too much."

Skywarp smiled sheepishly, stepping closer to Thundercracker's position. "Naw. I just _drank_ too much."

"You…" Thundercracker's fingers twitched as he resisted the urge to run his hand down his face in frustration. He was not really sure what to do. He was sure that Skywarp had searched him out because he wanted him to _do_ something, but Thundercracker could only suggest sending him to Hook- which he knew Skywarp would not do. "Well..." He began lamely. "Do you feel like you're about to keel over and die?"

Skywarp poked at his chassis experimentally. "Not just yet. Then again, I could just be so excited about my 20 credits that I could be ignoring the symptoms of death. Do I look pale to you?"

"Okay, not dead... Do you feel well enough to fly?"

"Slag no." Skywarp laughed airily.. "My tanks are so full I don't think I could even achieve liftoff. It's like gaining an elephant. I don't even know where all of the oil went- I'm not any bigger."

"Maybe you should have considered a possible inability to fly before acting on Dirge's proposition."

"It wasn't a proposition. It was a he-man competition."

Thundercracker looked resigned. "Okay. I'm done asking questions. As long as you are still able to stand upright and hold a gun, regardless of how full of disgusting organic matter you are, you can ingest whatever you please."

"Fantastic, because I ingest whatever I please anyway."

"Oh yes. I know better than most."

"But this time… I kind of… don't think it's settling with my tank."

"Well you do know that crude oil is not good for you, correct? Especially 50 gallons of it."

"I kind of figured… but I got 20 credits. Also I'm not dead, so that's always good. What is not good is how I am feeling. I feel… kinda like…" However, Skywarp was not able to finish his sentence, and Thundercracker watched with a sinking feeling as his face went slack. Just as Thundercracker took a instinctive, concerned step forward, Skywarp took that opportunity to keel over and begin the long, loud, and grotesque process of purging his tanks of the 50 gallons of crude oil that he had very recently consumed.

All over Thundercracker's floor.

All over Thundercracker's feet.

The blue Seeker's face fell flat as he stared blankly ahead, listening to Skywarp's noisy heaves of digusting, wet, organic material. For reasons that he could not even begin to explain, he felt quite incapable of moving. He was welded to the spot, unable to stop the continued flow of purged oil from hitting his legs.

"That's right." Thundercracker mumbled with all of the excitement of a mech covered in bile. "Just let it all out. All over my thrusters. Because this is my life."

Skywarp's heaves diminished after several long moments, and he remained keeled-over, panting, and shivering. After one more moment, he pushed himself upright, actually having the audacity to look slightly impressed by the sheer volume of his mess.

"Woah." Skywarp muttered, optics half shuttered as his systems tried to regulate themselves. "That was… intense."

Thundercracker wanted to punch him.

Instead, he inhaled slowly and counted to ten in three different language, trying not to think of all of the unhygienic matter that was now all over his legs.

Unfortunately, the less he thought about the unhygeienic matter, the more he thought of new, creative ways to maim, harass, and otherwise murder Skywarp. The only thing that kept him from acting on his thoughts was his inability to move a microinch.

"Feel better?" Thundercracker asked slowly, his wings rigid as a physical manifestation of his discomfort.

"Yeah." Skywarp looked up from surveying his slowly advancing mess, his mouth lifting into an almost-proud smile. "Yeah… I think I am-" except Thundercracker did not find out what Skywarp thought that he was, because at that moment, the purple jet once again dipped his cranium and began a second round of purge-on-the-wingmate's-legs.

Thundercracker's hands instinctively formed claws at his sides. He shuttered his optics, and did the only thing that he could think of to temporarily distract himself. He prayed.

"Dear Primus... I know that you hate me, I know that you have always hated me. But please..."

"Huh." Skywarp mumbled after his final heave. "Don't remember eating _that_."

Thundercracker inhaled slowly."-please try your best to hate Skywarp at least twice as much."

Thankfully, the small prayer to Primus provided him the opportunity to remind himself that just because his best friend was eradicating disgusting organic matter all over his feet, it did not mean that he was likely to be an acceptable new home for any of the repulsive bacteria residing in the substance.

'_Soap.'_ He reminded himself. _'Soap is good.'_

Unshuttering his optics when he was sure that he could look at his wingmate without throttling him, he set his face into an expression that he hoped looked more calm and less like he was in pain. "… Now do you feel better?"

"Yeah…" Skywarp blearily mumbled, still bent over with his hands on his knees. "I think I'm finally done…"

Thundercracker braced himself, looking down at the pool of oil that had not been there mere seconds before.

"Yeah. That looks like about 50 gallons to me."

"Oh… good." Skywarp pushed himself into an upright position, suddenly finding it within himself to smile. "I feel much better."

Thundercracker responded to Skywarp's smile with an expression that articulated his agitation.

"I am so glad I could be of service. Are you sure you don't want to flush your radiator on my computer console while your at it? Maybe an oil change on my berth?"

Skywarp's smile wilted slightly.

"You're cranky. Did you miss Oprah again?"

"No I did not miss Oprah. You just purged half-digested fuel _all over my legs_." Thundercracker stated.

"Yeah… I guess I did, didn't I?"

"Yes."

"You are stronger for it.

"No. I am not stronger for it. I am disgusting now. I am _soiled_."

"It's a good look for you."

"It's _all over my floor. Everywhere._"

Skywarp glanced down, looking slightly uncomfortable. "…It's a good look for your floor."

"There are_ tree branches in it_."

"Point?"

"Did you really eat tree branches? Really?"

"If I said yes?"

"For the love of Vector Sigma's spherical torso..." Thundercracker rested his face in his palm. "Tree branches? What _haven't_ you eaten?"

"Well." Skywarp rested his hands on his hips, actually looking as if he was seriously consider the question. "I won't eat mothballs ever again…"

"Mothballs... you ate mothballs." Thundercracker laughed humorlessly.

"I tried some Windex, too. That one was a dare. The mothballs were plain curiosity."

"So, ingesting weird things and purging is normal for you."

"Nah. I don't like to waste, so I never really purge."

"And I don't suppose it was possible for you to turn the other direction before you decided to purge this time? One of the supposedly rare times you decided to do so?"

Skywarp looked contemplative. "… Nooo. Not really, no. It didn't quite cross my mind. What did cross my mind, however, was 'I think I need to purge and TC's legs look like a good place to aim for'. Didn't want to make a mess, you know."

"Good job." Thundercracker tilted his head towards the slowly spreading mess. Skywarp followed his subtle head-tilt.

"Thanks. It seemed logical at the time."

"And I don't suppose..." Thundercracker began through clenched denta with forced patience, "that you could have just said no to Dirge like a normal self-respecting mech and get overenergized on _real_ energon? Or is the normalcy just too novel of a concept for you? We could have avoided this. _All_ of this." Thundercracker gesticulated towards everything.

Skywarp looked proudly at all of _that_, and only managed a grin. "What do you think?"

"I think you don't know what self-respect is and would have consumed the crude oil regardless of whether or not you knew that you would vomit it all over my legs and my floor."

"Sounds about right. Good to know that my aim is so spot-on. I should get a promotion."

"I have a feeling that Megatron would not be impressed with your ability to hit your desired target with your regurgitated fuel. Especially if you aim for his legs."

"I'd be impressed. In fact, I am impressed. I deserve some energon. To celebrate!"

"How can you even think about energon after you just… _this_." Thundercracker once again gestured to the floor.

"Easy." Skywarp shrugged. "You should try it sometime."

"No." Thundercracker frowned. "First off, there is half-digested oil and remnants of tree branches all over my legs. As a result, I have lost any appetite I may have had before you decided to throw up on me."

"Well go find it. I'm starved."

"No, because you don't deserve any. You deserve to clean this up and give me the twenty credits you got from Dirge."

Skywarp's jaw dropped.

"Are you crazy? Don't answer that- yes, you are a screwloop. Look, you don't have to get any energon if your appetite is so wimpy and feeble with no biceps to be spoken of, but as far as I am concerned, I am now running on empty. I also risked my life for these 20 credits. You only got vomited on. By the way, that-" Skywarp pointed towards the 'oil-spill'. "-is gross. And you are stepping in it. That was in my tank, you know."

"Believe me. I am well aware." Thundercracker said dryly. "Now give me the 20 credits and clean up your mess."

"These are my credits. Get your own."

"Okay." Thundercracker narrowed his optics. "So you come into my room to spout your stupid-antic-of-the-hour, thrust your credits in my face, then proceed to spout your oil on my legs. Right after I showed you some concern, I might add. Now after you throw up on me and get half-digested tree branch lodged in my knee-joint, you refuse to clean it up. I see how this is."

"I never said I wouldn't clean it up. I just said that these credits are mine." Skywarp arched an optic ridge. "Don't jump to assumptions. Besides, it's not like you had anything better to do when I came to visit. Still don't, by the looks of it."

"And you do?"

"Yes. Because of unforeseen circumstances, my fuel tank is now low, and I require sustenance. Energon sounds lovely."

Thundercracker's expression twisted into one of disgust as he once again looked down into the pool of rejected fuel. "There is something wrong with you."

"What's so wrong with being _parched_? It tends to happen when everything that was once _in_ your tanks is now _out_ of your tanks. Besides, I don't think that I have to remind you that I'm not the one standing in a pile of purged fuel. Now _that _is questionable. You can step out of it any time you would like, you know."

"If I move I am afraid I may not be able to resist the urge to permanently disfigure you." Thundercracker lifted a single foot, cringing at the slight 'slop' noise that the movement made and frowned deeply at Skywarp's soft exclamation of 'ew'. He placed his foot back in the mess, blowing air slowly through his vents.

"Just clean up this mess and get out of here, Warp." He shook his head. "I truly do not have the patience for your nonsense today. Truly."

"You _always_ have patience for my nonsense, TC. Today's no exception." Skywarp smiled toothily.

"No. Not today." Thundercracker's wings twitched as he began to slowly side-step from the mess. "You drank a fraggin' raw compound trying to impress Dirge, came to me to make it better, expelled it from your systems, and now you will not commit to cleaning it up." He looked half mournfully, half in revulsion at his oil-coated legs. "That is absolute_ nonsense_ that I do not have the patience for."

"I wasn't trying to impress Dirge. I was trying to skewer things on his head before proving my masculinity to him, remember?"

"Well your masculinity is all over my floor." Thundercracker snapped.

"You wouldn't be so upset if it wasn't your floor. Or your legs. But at least you have manly legs now. No need to thank me."

Thundercracker's optics narrowed. Skywarp lifted his hands to accentuate his shrug.

"Look, I know you're kinda weird about organic matter, but it's clean. Really. It's not going to eat through your paint or anything. I promise, I'll get this cleaned up."

Thundercracker's iotu==

Besides, look at it this way-" Skywarp said, clasping a hand on his friend's shoulder, avoiding the mess. "-at least it wasn't _my_ floor."

Thundercracker's expression turned to one of cold vehemence. Skywarp removed his hand from Thundercracker's shoulder, challenging his wingmate's expression with a less-than-convincing angry look of his own.

"Get out, you unhygienic creaton of the Inferno."

Skywarp blinked his optics.

"What?"

"Get out of here."

"But I haven't committed to cleaning up your floor yet."

"Just go get your energon and be stupid somewhere else. I was busy, now I have to clean up your mess, and I don't feel like speaking to you." Thundercracker put his hands on his hips, expression severe. Skywarp parted his lips.

"But I don't want to be stupid somewhere else."

Thundercracker huffed, thrusting a finger towards his door. "Well too bad, you pitspawn. Get out."

"Hey, lighten up TC. I'm just trying to make myself feel better. You're having the counter effect."

"I don't want you to feel better. I want you to feel terrible."

"It's not like I could help it. It was going to come out one way or another."

"Get out."

Skywarp heaved a sigh, crossing his arms over his chest. "You always get snippy when you're dirty. Look- just go to the washracks and I'll box up this regurgitated oil and dump it on Dirge's berth, okay? Then we can get energon and forget all about how I ejected 50 gallons of raw oil faster than Soundwave has ever ejected Lazerbeak."

Thundercracker stared at him through narrowed optics.

Skywarp hitched his shoulders in an exasperated half-shrug. "What else do you want from me? The leg of Optimus Prime? A statue erected in your honor? A _soul_?"

Thundercracker looked contemplative for a long moment as if seriously considering the offers. After a long moment, he opened his mouth.

"Fine."

"There we go. Some cooperation. That wasn't so hard, was it?" Skywarp looked slightly relieved.

"I expect my statue to be complete in two weeks time."

"Oh ha. You funny mech."

"Why… must you be so trying?" Thundercracker rested a hand on his helm, his frustration replaced by weariness.

"Because you put up with it, mostly. I probably wouldn't throw up on Starscream—he would hurt me. You on the other hand… are more irritated with the fact that it's nasty, not so much that I was the one who did it."

Thundercracker blinked, lifting his hand slightly off of its position on his helm. "I…" He paused for a moment before exhaling a scoff. "I think that it is gross, I think that I am irritated that it is you because it is _always_ you, and I think that I still kind of want to hurt you but probably won't."

Skywarp smiled knowingly.

"I think that you just envy me because I don't have a fun capacity of a vacuum tube."

"I think that if you don't shut up, I'm going to shove my cannon up your aft and fire it."

"Then again, I guess vacuum tubes can be fun…"

Thundercracker nodded curtly in approval, leaving footprints of oil as he made his way towards his door.

"I'm going to the washracks."

"Good thing, too. I lied earlier. Regurgitated fuel-coated legs are not a good look for you. A clean, shiny TC that has the ambiguous aroma of half-eaten energon goodies is a good look for you. The only thing better than that would be a new purple and black paintjob, because they are both attractive and engaging."

"Clean up your bile and don't talk to me until you wash up." Was all Thundercracker said before exiting his room.

Skywarp smiled to himself. "Good friend…" He mumbled to himself as he began to survey his mess.

Grabbing Thundercracker's discarded datapad from his berthside table, he used it to begin pushing the oil underneath his friend's berth. "I would never admit to such a thing."

What Thundercracker did not know would not hurt him.

* * *

><p>AN: Skywarp is a glutton and TC is a germaphobe. Extreeeemmmeee character development.


	3. Blunder

A/N: I have one request. Just one.

Take this for what it is. I am no scientist.

Disclaimer: I only own action figures, guys, not the rights.

* * *

><p><strong>Title:<strong> Blunder

**Characters: **Starscream

**Genre:** Humor

**Summary:** Starscream loved chemistry, but after an intrusive, loud, and rather unfortunate fusion-cannon-induced accident, he found himself... _attached_ to his experiment.

* * *

><p>Blunder<p>

When Starscream was not tempting fate, harassing his underlings, or reminding those within audial-range of his superiority, he enjoyed science. Simply put, the scientist in him was reawakened upon resigning himself to his stay on Earth. He dared not audibly admit it, but the organic planet had a very wide range of new compounds and substances that were not readily available on Cybertron. They kept him entertained despite the fact that they were disgusting and unhygienic.

He found solace in creating, discovering, and artificially combining elements and compounds. Amongst the many subjects and areas of science he was knowledgeable of, chemistry remained his favorite.

Not only was it a very precise form of science, but it was always nice to know what elements were required to blow something (or someone) up.

Starscream held a vial of thin, clear liquid in front of his optics, analyzing the quantity of the fluid down to the precise millimeter. A small noise of satisfaction left his vocalizer as he lowered the vial to his desk, reaching for another tube of a thicker substance resembling watered-down glue.

He would have denied it to a bitter smelt-pool, but his latest project was not something that he was particularly useful to the Decepticon cause in any way. It was simply something to do. It was _amusing_.

He had decided to work on a project that would satisfy his own curiosity. Something that was neither particularly dangerous or complex- combining Cybertronian substances with organic compounds found on Earth to create an instantaneous, yet incredibly durable adhesive that could chemically bind one surface to another. In other words, he was out to create a substance that was able to fuse one mass to another on a subatomic level. He had already created an instant adhesive made of Cybertronian materials, certainly, but to be able to create a similar substance from organic material was a rewarding concept.

As expected in area of science, however, trial and error was inevitable. He had also learned the hard way that mixing foreign substances with ones found solely on Cybertron was quite dangerous. Thus far, his attempts had been… embarrassing. Within his first several experiments, he had shattered his favorite set of test tubes, melted a hole in both his wall and his floor, and now had a strange mold growing on his forearm. Despite his failures, after several long terrestrial hours, a singed forehead, and a partially melted finger later, he was certain that he was nearing success.

He held the second vial loosely in his hand, tilting it slightly to observe its consistency. He made a note on his datapad before pulling an empty flask towards him and grabbing the first vial. Holding a separate vial in each hand, he stooped down to view the flask at eye-level as he began to very slowly and very carefully pour the contents of the vials into the container. Setting the vials aside, he watched the chemical-compound carefully as he stirred the thick consistency. He cringed back slightly, bracing himself for a potential explosion of shattered glass. He was prepared. After a long moment, however, a satisfied grin spread across his face as he realized that the compound was finally, after several terrestrial hours of work, stable.

Congratulating himself for his success, his existence, and his inborn ability to be better than everyone at everything, he straightened up and began to rummage through the chemicals on his shelf. One more miniscule ingredient would add the strength and durability to the compound that he desired, thus completing his newest experiment. It was a Cybertronian element that had the ability to enhance a chemical bond between even the most resistant of metals. Opening the flask of the last ingredient, he had every intention of transferring a fixed amount into a pipet to deliver a precise measurement…

Though fate, it seemed, had no mercy for him that day.

He started violently, dropping the flask of Cybertronian liquid whilst knocking over the flask of his newest mixture onto his desk as his door was brutally vaporized from its previous spot on the wall. In a numb state of surprise, he braced a hand on his desk, using it to stand up quickly as he stared with wide optics at the new gaping hole in his wall. The unmistakable form of Megatron stepped through the smoky haze, livid and deadly.

"M-Megatron…" Starscream uttered within his shock, mouth parted as he tried to make sense of the situation."

"Starscream…" Megatron growled, pausing in front of the new doorway.

Starscream began to recover from his stunned state, optics flicking from Megatron's form to his new hole (though he found himself mourning his loss). Quickly drawing himself up as his initial alarm wore off, he once again spoke before considering how many limbs he could potentially lose from his statement.

"It would not surprise me in the slightest, mighty leader, but have you forgotten how to use a door?"

The only answer he received was a fusion-cannon shot whizzing by his head.

"B-Be careful!" Starscream cried. "These are highly reactive chemical- ah!" Starscream was cut off by a sudden burning pain in his hand, crying out as he instinctively attempted to pull the limb away from the offender.

Attempted.

No sooner than he tried to pull his hand off of his desk did he realize that within his shock, he had set his hand directly in his spilled, unfinished adhesive compound…which was now mixed with the _entire flask of the Cybertronian bonding liquid_… One look at his hand clearly indicated that it was in the process of fusing entirely to the metallic surface of the desk. He quickly diagnosed that the heat of the fusion cannon had caused the unknown compound to react with the surfaces that it had come into contact with—namely, his hand and the surface of his desk.

He hissed in pain, his free hand clawed as he clenched his denta, the sensation of burning temporarily overwhelming his fear of Megatron. He continued his futile effort to release his hand from the compound, though once the burning began to subside, he realized that he was not about to be released from its hold.

Still he gave his arm a yank, parting his lips slightly as a sensation of dread began to seep through his frame. He yanked again, though there was absolutely no give.

'_Slag. Me._'

"Your information was wrong, _Starscream_."

Starscream jumped, suddenly remember that his hand was the least of his worries. He turned to face his menacing leader. "I-Information?" Starscream stuttered, any prior bravery or desire to provoke his leader completely vanished.

"The coordinates to the supposed 'underground oil reserves', Starscream. They were _wrong._" came the lethal reply.

"I-I swear I didn't… I couldn't have possibly…" Starscream began to tug at his stuck hand, desperation suddenly overwhelming and clouding his mind as he stared at his leader's looming figure. Megatron's livid red optics shone through the remaining haze.

"Surely you know by now the punishment for false information. Especially false information that will set us back in our progress towards universal conquest… You are aware of the punishment for providing false information, aren't you Starscream?" Megatron began to take excruciatingly slow strides towards Starscream's undignified position as the red Seeker tried desperately to pull his hand free from his own concoction.

"N-No! Megatron! Don't!" Starscream gasped, ceasing his attempt to release his arm, instead turning fully towards Megatron's approaching form with his back pressed to the desk.

Megatron walked closer, though paused a short distance away as he regarded Starscream's cowering form. His optics narrowed as his head tilted downwards contemplatively.

"Has your processor malfunctioned Starscream, or has your fear welded you to the spot?" Megatron spoke, his voice a mix or irritation and curiosity.

"N-not my fear, no, just your graceful entrance. If… If you were more observant, _oh great leader,_ then you would notice that… that I am quite incapable of moving, otherwise I would not be here right now!" Starscream snapped, tempting fate despite himself.

Megatron's gaze fell on the Air Commander's immobile hand, a smirk of understanding replacing his usual glower. Starscream noted his leader's change of spark, though was not at all put at ease by Megatron's sudden amusement. It simply meant that he was about to be humiliated. His spark sank at the revelation.

"Ah, so I see. It appears that you and your desk have some… shall we say… _chemistry_." Megatron's smirk widened as Starscream sent him a flat stare.

"It is you who has managed to adhere me to my own desk, you bumbling lout." Starscream exhaled sharply.

Megatron raised his fist threateningly as Starscream instinctively cowered into himself.

"Even in your state of vulnerability you run your mouth and beg me to shoot you where you stand." Megatron scoffed. "One would think that you are intelligent enough to know how to resist tempting fate when you are in no position to defend yourself, but it appears that is not so."

"One would think that you are smart enough to knock before entering a _chemistry lab_, not blowing the door up!" Starscream spat. "Do you even realize what could have happened!"

"Well, if always results in such entertaining situations, then I will have to remember to do it more often." Megatron stated with an optic ridge raised.

"You could have blown half of the base up, you fool!" Starscream bristled.

"Are you implying that I do not know what I am doing, Starscream?" the air around Megatron seemed to darken as he spoke, making Starscream cringe.

"I am in no position to say otherwise." Starscream said in a small, resentful voice. "Just answer me this- was it truly necessary to blow the door off of my lab?"

"It was absolutely mandatory."

Starscream scowled. "I will have you know that you have ruined my experiment."

Megatron's optics went to Starscream's fused hand. "A failed experiment you say. A moment of entertainment, I say. Tell me what it was that this… experiment was supposed to be."

"A permanent adhesive." Starscream sniffed. "A permanent adhesive that would chemically adhere any given surfaces to each other. However, thanks to your 'help', it is now a compound that permanently _fuses_ two surfaces together!"

Megatron smirked.

Starscream felt sick.

"You permanently fused your hand to your desk."

"Brilliant observation, leader. I could not have said it better myself." Starscream muttered without heart.

Megatron crossed his arms, staring at Starscream thoughtfully. "This compound—is it a permanent fusion?"

Starscream looked from Megatron to his hand, inhaling slowly.

"… Come see me in ten breems, and if the desk is still attached to my hand, then yes, I would say so." Starscream said wryly, shrinking away as Megatron began to draw near. The Decepticon leader paused, looking contemplative. He spoke after a long, tense moment.

"Come to the command center with a sample of this compound in three breems." Megatron ordered, uncrossing his arms. "Bring the desk if you must. I can see that you are quite… _attached_ to it."

Starscream made a conscious effort not to groan out loud.

"I will have Soundwave run some tests on its properties. Used appropriately, this new compound could be useful to our cause." He continued, gaze still on the Air Commander's hand.

"Indeed." Starscream said in bad humor, face set in a pained grimace. Megatron swept his stare over the two overturned flasks.

"The stability of your compound is questionable."

"I think that your thunderous entrance was the cause of that." Starscream said sardonically.

"Ah, but without such an entrance, this compound would not exist."

"Which may have been a better result! As it is, this could blow up at any moment. I do not know the stability of this mixture."

"Regardless, Starscream, I want you to bring me the sample even if your hand is reduced to smoking stub."

"Oh sure, I'll do that." Starscream could not help the cynicism that slipped into his voice.

"You are an excellent experimental subject." Megatron said with dark amusement, making his way towards the hole in the wall. "For the record, I do hope that this is an unstable compound." He cackled sinisterly, disappearing through the hole.

Starscream glared at the general direction his leader departed in, feeling the burning in his hand subside completely. He assumed that the chemical reaction had completed its fusion. He also assumed, upon getting a good look at the results of the spill, that he was not about to reverse the effects of the synthesis. He exhaled sharply through his vents, scanning his work desk for anything with the potential to help him out of his situation. Creating a separation agent would take much too long with his limited mobility.

He remembered watching a movie once where a human had been forced to chew off its own arm in order to escape an unfortunate predicament. He quickly barred the idea from his processor.

"Hmmm…" he sounded, pressing his free thumb meditatively against his lips.

Surely there had to be something that would separate his hand from the desk. Something that would not require him to chew his own arm off.

His gaze locked on a saw on the opposite side of his workbench, several feet out of reach.

He smirked.

* * *

><p>The atmosphere of the command center changed to a tense silence as the form of Starscream walked deliberately inside, one hand held formally behind his back, the other holding a small flask filled with a thick substance. Skywarp temporarily abandoned his monitor, leaning back in his chair and tilting his head back to look at his commander upside-down. Thundercracker simply sent him a bored glance.<p>

"Hey, Screamer." Skywarp said. "Saw the new door in your chem lab. You have horrible luck with doors, don't you?"

Starscream glared, but remained silent.

"We're not fixing this one for you, by the way."

"Where is Megatron?" Starscream asked tersely, ignoring his wingmate.

"Not here." Skywarp smiled, sitting upright and simply turning to face him.

"Well that much is obvious."

"Then why'd you ask?" The purple jet shrugged.

Starscream frowned. "He tells me not to be late and yet he is not prompt. A disgraceful quality in a leader."

"Ever stop to consider that he has an army to run and probably has better things to do than cater to your schedule?" Thundercracker frowned.

"Also, he's Megatron. He doesn't have to answer to anyone." Skywarp stood up, hands on his hips. "If he wants to be late, he can. If he wants to beat you with a dead horse because he doesn't like your color scheme, he can do that too. And there's nothing you can do about it because… well… he's Megatron."

"You truly think that is a valid excuse?" Starscream made a face. "As far as I am concerned, if he says that he is going to be here at a specific time, he should hold to his word regardless of his position in the Decepticon hierarchy."

"Well if I was Megatron, I would definitely beat you with a dead horse."

"Shut up!" Starscream snapped, gripping the sample tightly in his hand.

Thundercracker quirked an optic ridge, eying the vial in his commander's hand. "Is that for Megatron?"

"If I was at all interested in telling you, I would, you prying pest."

Thundercracker rolled his optics, leaning lazily back in his chair. "Fine. I will just assume that it is a concoction that clogs the sanity-valve when ingested until I am proven otherwise. In which case, you have been downing that stuff like high-grade."

Starscream was just about to retort before feeling a presence behind him, ungracefully turning and stumbling a few steps back as Skywarp stood uncomfortably close. The purple jet smiled impishly. "What's with the platter, Screamer?"

Starscream recovered, irritation clouding his features as he regained his composure and shoved his hand behind his back.

"Don't ask stupid questions, Skywarp." He snapped, not willing to acknowledge the newest addition to his frame.

"It's not stupid." Skywarp pointed to his commander's hand, which was now very visible and attached to a thick metallic surface that looked as if it had been roughly cut through with a saw. "I am genuinely curious, though I won't deny that I am going to eternally harass you for it. Are you trying to be a butler?"

Starscream recoiled slightly, glancing down at the desk-top fused to his hand that he had been forced to saw through in order to escape from his chemistry lab. "A butler?"

"Uh huh. They hold serving platters and wear bow ties and people tell them when they're thirsty."

"Your idiocy astounds me."

"Idiocy? Harsh. I'm just observative. Speaking of observation, I spy one small problem—you're missing a bow tie."

The darker jet ducked with a laugh as Starscream's hand (and attached piece of metal) came sweeping towards his head with every intention of injuring him. Skywarp stepped just out of reach, still grinning playfully.

"Stop harassing him, Warp. Can't a mech just walk around half-fused to a piece of metal just because he feels like it?" Thundercracker stated more than he asked, looking quite content with the situation. Starscream looked incensed.

"Fused huh?" Skywarp's optics shifted to the red jet's hand. "Hah!"

"So that must be what the sample is, hm? Have an accident?" Thundercracker asked, sitting up straight in his chair.

"Shut up." Starscream huffed. "As I said, it is none of your business!"

"Screamer, you could be like a superhero." Skywarp beamed. His wingmates sent him an identical arid stare.

"Hey, don't give me that look. A lot of Superheroes get their powers from freak accidents. And that, Screamer is some freak accident. You could be… '_The Mechler_, butler by day, whacking Autobots over the head with your platter by night.' It _works_."

There was a long moment of silence before Starcream turned away from them.

"I am going to go find Megatron before I decide to sever your vocalizer from your frame. If either of you speak to me for a week, I will use this to fuse your hand to your face."

"No need to do that. You're a superhero butler now. You could beat us with your platter." Skywarp grinned to himself, thoroughly amused with his mental image.

Starscream held up his platter-hand threateningly.

"Embrace it, Starscream! It is part of you now!"

"Literally." Thundercracker shrugged a shoulder.

"Heh, good on ya' TC. High five!"

"No."

"Killjoy… Hey, Screamer, high-platter!"

"Go frag a minibot!" Starscream scowled.

"Only if you join me." Skywarp said suggestively, one hand placed jauntily on his hip.

Starscream looked quite ready to inflict harm on his boisterous wingmate, but showed a shred of self-restraint as he resisted the urge pummel him.

"I am leaving now."

"Do you want help… ah… separating your hand from that plate?" Thundercracker asked, gesturing towards his air commander's 'accident'.

"Don't even think about taking away his new identity, TC!" Skywarp immediately jumped in before Starscream could say a word. "Without it he will just be 'Starscream: Mech who is not a butler and has a stupid voice'. Don't do that to him."

"Shut up Skywarp! Don't you have an off switch?" Starscream looked completely exasperated, hand tightening dangerously around the vial.

"He doesn't. I've been looking for one for vorns." Thundercracker mumbled.

"Whose side are you on, anyway?" Skywarp's optics narrowed.

"I say that you _both_ need an off switch!"

"So is that a no?" Thundercracker asked.

"Of course it is a no! I do not need your help."

"The Mechler never needs help!"

"What did I tell you about shutting up?"

"I cannot be silenced!" Skywarp burst out, thrusting an index finger into the air theatrically.

"It's true." Thundercracker threw in unhelpfully.

"I will MAKE you silent!" Starscream snarled towards his purple wingmate.

"Aha! My arch-nemesis, the Mechler! You say you can silence me, but I will have you know that in the name of all that is evil, irresponsible, and bowler-hat shaped, I shall never be silenced! Never!"

"Silence, Skywarp." Megatron's voice rang strong through the air as Starscream looked about ready to snap. The Decepticon leader stepped purposely into the room, flanked by Soundwave. Skywarp wilted slightly, but nodded in acknowledgement.

"Yes, Megatron…"

The silver leader stopped at the sight of Starscream glaring daggers at him, looking meticulously unimpressed. "Ah, Starscream. Just the treacherous specimen that I was looking for."

"Well I was here, just as I said I would be. On time. As a respectable leader should be." Starscream said bitterly, devoid of anything resembling patience or common sense.

Megatron raised an optic ridge. "You do not think that I have better things to do than accommodate your time schedule? Well you are very much mistaken."

Thundercracker lazily lifted his hand slightly off of the arm of his chair, turning his palm upwards as if to say _'that's what I said.', _though no one noticed._  
><em>  
>In bad temper, Starscream thrust out his hand, offering the sample. "Just take it. As you have so kindly demonstrated, <em>o graceful leader<em>, it works. Very well."

Skywarp sent a knowing grin towards Thundercracker, mouthing '_platter_' with glee.

"That is good to hear. Now, if its stability can be ensured, I will require a weapon to launch it from." Megatron said, snatching the vial from his second-in-command's outstretched hand.

"Not so fast, leader."

Megatron focused his attention on his air commander.

"I will put this in terms that you can understand. By itself, the compound is considerably unreactive—at least, compared to the reaction that you desire. It will do no more than glue two humans together. I have no doubt that it is unstable, though from what I have observed, it is external heat energy that creates the kinetic energy required to create the permanent fusion. You will need to construct a way to introduce an intense heat to it after it leaves the projectile weapon, lest it fuse to the weapon in question."

Megatron gave him a look of acknowledgement. Skywarp looked confused.

"All I heard was 'gluing two humans together'." Said the warper.

"You shoot the sticky stuff out of a gun and make it hot to melt things together." Thundercracker clarified.

"Like humans." Skywarp suggested.

"Or preferably things that are less messy… like Autobots."

"Or humans." Skywarp flashed him an insufferable grin. Thundercracker sighed.

Megatron did not acknowledge them as he tilted his head towards his silent lieutenant. "Soundwave, seeing as though Starscream is a little… restricted, shall we say, you are in charge of constructing the projectile weapon to house this new bonding agent. This will be an advantageous way to impede the enemy- in this case, the Autobots. In your case, Starscream, the use of your left hand." Megatron motioned towards the direction of said limb, a smirk on his face. Starscream turned his head away defiantly.

"Acknowledged, Megatron." Soundwave's computerized voice spoke for the first time, accepting the vial from the mech in question.

"Excellent…" Megatron grinned deviously. "Well done Starscream. You may go separate yourself from your desk now, if you so desire. In addition, I want your unsightly door repaired immediately."

Starscream sent a sharp look towards his wingmates. Skywarp cringed away, holding up his arms to create an 'X'. Thundercracker simply motioned towards his monitor, indicating that he was on duty.

"Yes, Megatron."

"Dismissed." Megatron said shortly, swiftly walking out of the command center with Soundwave and the vial in tow.

The room was silent for a long moment before the sounds of Skywarp shifting uncomfortably could be heard through the command center.

"You know what, Screamer...?" Skywarp asked in an uncharacteristically small voice.

Starscream's mouth tilted downwards. "No."

"Even though you do not embrace the Mechler... You will always be _my_ hero."

A resounding clang echoed throughout the room as Starscream put his platter to use- defacing the purple Seeker.

* * *

><p>AN: _THE MECHLER NEVER NEEDS HELP!_

Thanks for the read and all of the lovely comments, everyone. :)


	4. Denial

A/N: Why is it so fun to harass giant robots? Does it make me feel all-powerful? Do I like the feeling of having their fates at my fingertips?

_Yes. _Yes I do.

This one is centered around Starscream and Thundercracker. I think I still have a few kinks to work out, so please excuse any spelling or grammatical errors until my brain is alive enough to remember how to spell anything other than 'ugh.' I just had to get this thing posted before I went prematurely senile.

**EDIT:** Okey dokey, I spit-shined it and now it is presentable. Note to self: Stop being impatient and posting things before you proof-read it at least 5 times. You will only hate yourself later.

I would also like to take the time to thank each and everyone one of you for reading these silly little drabbles from my brain. :) In addition, all of your lovely comments are simply rejuvenating. I never realized how inspiring it was to hear people tell you that they like your stuff and think that Skywarp is icky. You guys keep me young. At least 6 months younger.

Disclaimer: Transformers © Hasbro

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><p><strong>Title:<strong> Denial

**Characters: **Thundercracker & Starscream

**Genre:** General/ I-refuse-to-admit-that-I-kind-of-do-not-mind-tolerating-your-company-sometimes**  
><strong>

**Summary:** Complacency brought him face-to-face with death. An uncharacteristic course of action allowed him to appreciate another day.

* * *

><p>Denial<p>

It was funny how, after millions of war-filled years, so many warriors survived to see yet another war-filled year. The years dragged on and blurred together, morals and goals were forgotten, replaced, or skewed, and comrades died. It was war, and war required that able-bodied soldiers risk their life in order to defend a cause. They risked their lives to defend an idea that was bigger than themselves.

A surprising amount of warriors survived, indeed, but a large quantity of warriors fell as well.

The ones who did survive rarely thought themselves capable of falling to enemy gunfire. They were the ones who watched their comrades in arms fall one by one to gunfire and fire. They watched, but they were untouched. Perhaps, on occasion, they thought themselves _invincible_.

It was not wise to jump to the assumption that one would come out of battle completely intact. In war, one shot to kill. In a war, there was little mercy and limited luck.

In war, complacency was dangerous.

Even with the knowledge that being offlined was always a possibility, no one truly expected to be the casualty of a skirmish. When a battle came to a temporary end, in victory or defeat, and the faction regrouped, injuries and fatalities were blamed on stupidity and incompetence. At least, in the Decepticon faction they were. The Decepticon faction had a power fixation—only the strong survived. Only the strong deserved to persevere and make their way up the ranks. It was because of those that became wounded or perished that others were able to move up and take their place among the elite. The weak were the stepping stones to higher positions and Megatron's favor. Not everyone had the luxury of making it that far. Physical impairments were unavoidable and were bound to happen to some unlucky sap that got in the way of a well-placed bullet.

It was an unfortunate truth that _someone_ had to be the victim, though no one ever entertained the thought that it would be them. The shock of learning of the injury of a teammate paled in comparison to finding oneself prey to a lucky shot.

It took less than a moment before the proud member of the aerial elite, previously flying so gracefully through the sky, leaving a relentless trail of destruction in his wake, found himself falling... He had become prey to the lucky shot that he had spent his whole military career trying to avoid.

The moment Thundercracker's initial astonishment wore off, and his HUD began to frantically flash warnings of rapid fluid loss and severe damage, he found himself cursing too late how overconfident he had become in his own abilities.

In the end, like so many before him, complacency had become his downfall.

He never saw it coming. The battle was generally no different than any other Earthen battle. Same energon raid concealed in different packaging, same Autobots stupid enough to halt their endeavor, same battle, same exchange of unfriendly laser-fire and combat… Being shot out of the sky, now that was not something that happened too frequently. He did not see where it came from, but he did know right away that the shot had impacted a vital energon line in his side. He would never claim to be an expert on Seeker anatomy, but the warning diagnostics that flashed in his peripheral vision rarely lied.

He spent a very short amount of time mentally scolding himself for his vital mistake and transformed in midair, finding it to be an unnaturally uncomfortable experience. A moment later, he crashed gracelessly onto the hard terrain whilst doing his very best to shield his wounded side and salvage the functional state of his wings. He hardly managed to haul himself into a sitting position before his offender's presence made itself known. He shifted his weight to sit on his knees with some effort, hands instinctively covering the large, smoking, and leaking hole in his side. Much to his horror, his instinct also began to shout new, unfathomable orders at him. It told him to run away. To crawl. To beg for his life. It told him this, because in some primitive, self-sustaining part of his CPU, he was almost certain that he was about to die.

His pride, despite his struggle to preserve it, overrode his impulse. His pride was the only thing that allowed him to stare resolutely into the barrel of the cannon less than three meters from his face. Even if he did not quite feel like dying, he believed that it was better to do so with unwavering valor.  
>He had been bred to die. He had signed his life over to the Decepticon cause. He had pronounced his allegiance to Megatron, willingly gave his physical and psychological self over to the cause, and signed the freedom of his livelihood in his own life-sustaining energon. He had been faced with death more times than he would have cared to admit. He was not scared to do what he had been bred to do.<p>

But still...

The battle raging around him seemed to fade out of his focus as he could only stare at the weapon thrust adversely into his personal space. He feared that if he even so much as turned his optics away for a nanoklik, it would be the end. He understood that the idea was absurd, but it was the only solid idea that he had to grasp on to in the face of his imminent death. So he stared, carefully keeping his expression vacant.

He could tell that the Autobot was waiting impatiently to kill him, but he tried to keep a level mind as he began to think of a possible way out of the situation. He contemplated several scenerios as his stare dropped from the gun, and onto a pair of red, metallic legs.

He had been shot out of his element, but he was still an elite Decepticon for a reason. He mentally fought through grogginess in his processor, ignoring the internal warnings that flashed his impending shut-down. His wound was fatal- his diagnostics told him so. If his wound did not kill him, then the red-legged Autobot holding a gun to his head would.

The Autobots may have been goody-goody flesh-loving aluminum balls of justice, but bad aim aside, they, like the Decepticons, shot to kill.

A shudder tore through his frame, unhealthy amounts of energon dripping through the hands clutched to the wound. He noticed with numb comprehension the amount of vital fluid he was sitting in_. His_ vital fluid. He could practically feel the Autobot's satisfaction rolling off of him in waves. He wondered how such sadistic mechs became Autobots.

"Any last word, Deceptiscum?"

He brushed off the cliché phrase, shifting his gaze for the first time from the barrel of the gun, to the Autobot who held it. His features went blank as the humiliating realization was processed, and it took everything in him not to fall over.

_A minibot._

Fracking Primus-almighty in the smelting pit.

It was a fragging minibot.

If he thought that he was going to die with any sort of honor, nobility, or respect, he understood right then and there that he was wrong. He was about to be killed by a murderous happy-meal toy the size of his leg. Suddenly overwhelmed with a sensation that he could only describe as bitter humiliation, he could not stop the sigh-like sound that blew out of his vents.

He resigned himself to lowering his head and resisting the urge to say anything insulting to the miniature joke of a mech.

Unable or unwilling to come to terms with the deadly Hotwheel in front of him, he instead focused his attention towards his physical state. He noticed the amount of smoke and sparks from his side.

Lucky shot.

He was also consciously aware of the feel of the thick, oily liquid covering half of his frame. It would take forever to clean off. Energon, oil, and coolant got everywhere. It took ages to clean out of the little crevices.

The sounds of war were long gone. It was just him and the Primus-slagging minibot. He wondered when Megatron would call the retreat…

Then he remembered that he would not be able to take part in that retreat.

He felt strong pulses of energy thrumming through his cannons. He contemplated whether or not he could shoot the minibot before the trigger could be pulled.

He let one hand fall from his side and onto the ground, making it appear as if he was bracing his weight on it. Despite his attempt at making the experimental movement of his arm as non-threatening as possible, the minibot thrust the gun closer to his face. His arm felt heavy. He was too sluggish to successfully attempt such a reckless maneuver, though he knew that he had nothing to lose. Rolling out of harm's way would also be a short-lived success. Flying was a risky option. They were on the outskirts of any of the action, so help was probably not likely...

His train of thought was suddenly halted by a sharp pain from his injured side, forcing him to bite his lip to silence a gasp. After the pain faded, he noted with a small amount of anxiety the uncomfortable length of silence that seemed to had already dragged on for hours. He took a moment to take one final glance around—possibly for a last-minute desperate escape attempt- before he heard the minibot speak again.

"I am going to take that as a no."

Thundercracker felt a twinge of fear that he did not even get the chance to suppress before the minibot readied his aim towards the center of his faceplate. Thundercracker tried to insult the unfortunate state of the Minibot's face, though it came out as an unimpressive wave of garbled static. He wished that he had not said anything at all.

"Goodbye, you homicidal Decepticon creep…"

Failed insult forgotten, he snapped his optics towards the gun, despite how badly it hurt to do so. It would not matter, anyway. He watched in morbid anxiety as the Autobot's finger eased down on the trigger. His audios seemed to have switched off, though he half-processed an annoying, low-pitched buzzing noise. He wished that he had attempted to shoot the minibot when he had the chance- it was not like he had anything to lose.

He was bred for this...

Still, the humiliating twinge of fear intensified.

Through his panicked haze, he swore that he saw a flash of light… though it disappeared as quickly as it had come as his vision was quite suddenly filled with a dark mass bearing the unmistakable silhouette of a wing, followed by a heavy impact to his side. With the crushing weight of metal-on-metal, he recognized through his fear-laden haze that he had been tackled to the ground. Thundercracker clutched at his side in agony underneath the heavy form, writhing as his diagnostics began to indicate impending stasis lock.

He thought that he heard a pained groan from above him before his systems began to shut down, and wondered for a fleeting moment whether or not his savior was a stray mech flung from the heat of battle, or just plain stupid…

* * *

><p>When Thundercracker awoke, he was only momentarily surprised to see Starscream sitting beside his berth in the medbay. His commander, though egotistic and predictably self-serving, did have enough of a spark (even if just a feeble, misshapen, and slightly oozing rendition of a normal-sized spark) to at least check in on his wingmates when they were incapacitated to ensure that they would be back in functioning order in a relatively short amount of time. The check-in was more for his benefit rather than theirs. What did surprise Thundercracker, however, was the fact that his commander had seemed to have made himself comfortable in a chair next to his berth.<p>

It seemed to him as though he had been there a while.

Starscream was contentedly perched on a chair facing the berth, optics focused intently on a datapad in one hand, and a half-empty energon cube in the other. Sensing the end of his wingmate's comatose, the red jet's face slowly twisted from tranquil to a sneer of contempt.

"Finally conscious, I see." Starscream stated without taking his eyes off of the datapad. "I was beginning to wonder if that Autobot had permanently knocked your processor stupid after managing to knock your frame ugly."

Thundercracker slowly brought a hand to his side, fingers gently brushing over a new layer of primer that signified a recent repair. He noticed it felt tender under his touch, so he left it alone in favor of raising his hand to his head. He did not feel particularly sore or ill, which he took as a good sign. The only hint of any recent damage or repairs was the pain in his side and the hardly-noticeable lagging of his CPU. Feeling satisfied with his self-evaluation, he focused his attention towards his commander, watching silently. What was he supposed to say? '_Thank you for perching yourself by my sickbed, mother_.'? '_So, going my way_?'... Perhaps a lame, but never-failing '_Hello_'? The red jet did not seem like he was in any hurry to leave.

Sensing the awkward stare, Starscream lowered his datapad to partially cover his side, meeting Thundercracker's gaze with a raised optic ridge.

"What are you staring at? Did they honestly knock you stupid? Because I was initially joking."

Thundercracker, finally with something to go on, returned a sneer, though it lacked any malice. He still felt too tired for malice.

"I was just trying to figure out who left an ugly slagball by my berthside while I was in stasis lock. That cannot be sanitary."

"Yes, they did do permanent damage, didn't they? Otherwise you would realize that the only ugly slagball here is the one confined to the repair berth."

"You sure showed me." Thundercracker scoffed, turning his gaze towards the ceiling. The purple ceiling was a familiar comfort. "I guess our insults would be more effective if we did not share the same frame."

"No, my insult is still valid. You are definitely an ugly slagball."

"So sorry my aesthetics offend you. When I am well, you can teach me the way of the beautiful people. Perhaps if you lend me that expression that you always have—you know, the look as if you are perpetually chewing on a rock?—I could get a girlfriend."

Starscream furrowed his optic ridges, staring at Thundercracker for a long moment before shaking his head and setting his datapad to the side.

"You, my flying aluminum dowel, spend a great deal too much time with Skywarp. Primus forbid I am ever forced to be stuck with two of those."

"How insulting." Thundercracker glanced at him wryly. "I like to think that I have higher aspirations than resembling a mech who eats tree branches in his spare time."

"Well then you are under a very unfortunate delusion."

"Did you just come to the repair bay to insult me when I woke up, Starscream, or did you have something to say?" Thundercracker felt the slightest twinge of annoyance towards his superior, though he did not know if he could chalk it up to the small detail that he was still in a mild amount of pain, or the fact that Starscream had compared him to Skywarp. He reasoned that it had a little to do with both. Awakening with a wingmate nearby was nothing new, so Thundercracker did not mind it, but to be bombarded with insults and a plain uncouth nature was not something that he particularly went out of his way to experience.

Starscream waved a dismissive hand. "If I simply wanted to insult you, I would have brought up the fact that you nearly got slagged by a minibot. You do know that you almost got slagged by a minibot, right?"

Thundercracker's optics narrowed towards the ceiling, not daring to meet his commander's face. He knew that looking at him would only make him feel worse.

"No comment."

"Well, in any case, I just came to make sure that your worthless aft woke up in time for an additional flight practice in 6 terrestrial hours. Since you are quite capable of being snarky with me, I assume that you will be just as capable of flying to your normal standards, if not better."

"Woopie." Thundercracker expressed dryly. "I haven't even sat up yet and I am expected to fly to my typical standards. Whatever happened to R&R? You know- medical leave?"

"You are fine."

Thundercracker frowned, realizing with some suspicion the truth of the statement. He had been face-to-face with what was indeed a deadly weapon, he saw the flash of light…

Then he remembered being hit by what he could only guess to be a mech-sized boulder or a flying truck. After that instant, he could not pull anything from his memory banks that might have alluded to what had happened after the blast was triggered. He was, as Starscream stated, 'fine'. He did not appear to have taken further damage than the shot to his side. Someone, or some boulder, had saved him. He hoped that whoever it was kept the head of the minibot, whichever one it was, and had plans to present it to him on a golden platter. He had the perfect place on his wall to hang it...

The blue jet ultimitely grunted in response to Starscream's statement for an initial lack of anything better to say. He mimicked Starscream's dismissive wave in an act of creative expression. It pulled at his injured side, but he was pleasantly surprised that it did not seem to be a pain that would inhibit him much. Yes, he could definitely fly.

And he decided to let Skywarp in on a new game that he had just invented. 'Throw dangerous objects at the '_every single minibot ever_''.

"Yes, I am." Thundercracker finally settled on saying. He met Starscream's optics once again, exhaling sharply out of his air intakes. "Would you mind filling me in as to why I am 'fine'? Like you said, I was almost slagged by a mini-… by an Autobot."

Starscream leaned back in his chair, indifferent and relaxed.

"I do not know."

Thundercracker found that hard to believe.

He braced himself as he slowly lifted himself into a sitting position. He stretched his limbs carefully, enjoying the sensation of his kinks being worked out. He was not sure how long he had been out, but from the feel of things, it had been a while.

"You did not see?" Thundercracker asked casually, lifting a hand to rub at a sore spot within his neck cables.

"No. I was a little busy. You know—avoiding lasers, dropping bombs on the unfortunate and misguided Autobots, laughing at them as they scattered… the usual."

"So you did not see anyone fling Optimus Prime at me to take the shot that was aimed at my face? Because that is exactly what it felt like."

"No. I would have remembered that."

"You could not have even said yes to make me feel slightly better about myself?"

Starscream lazily hooked a leg over the arm of the chair he occupied, setting his datapad so that it partially hid his torso from view. "Why would I make any attempt to make you feel better about yourself? The truth of the matter is, you got shot down by a minibot and probably collapsed before you could be finished off. And what's more is that I do not think that anyone saw your little accident. Lucky, hmm?"

"Yeah." Thundercracker mumbled dryly. "Lucky... No witnesses."

"Not a one."

Thundercracker looked skeptical. His last moments had been foggy and chaotic. He had been so focused on staying immediately alive that the battle raging on around him had not even compute to him. All he knew is that he did not have a hole through his processor, but someone- Decepticon or not- had a hole _somewhere_ after they took the time to barrel him over. Starscream's rendition had too many holes. He was curious as to what had transpired, and he had his suspicions, but he did not count on getting any sort of truth from the red jet. He was not particularly interested in prying the information out of his stubborn leader, either.

"And you certainly did not throw yourself at your dying subordinate in an uncharacteristic act of selflessness and nobility." Thundercracker more stated than asked.

Starscream scoffed loudly, wasting no energy to let Thundercracker understand the absurdity of the claim. "Absolutely not."

"You are serious."

"Of course I am serious. Why would I risk my life to save your worthless head full of malfunctioning parts?"

"No reason that I can think of."

"Precisely."

"So...I can just safely assume that Primus took pity on me and threw another Autobot in the line of fire in order to preserve my life for the good of all mech-kind?"

Starscream once again wore the same confused, impatient look that he usually reserved for Skywarp and Skywarp alone. Instead of answering, he only shook his head for the umpteenth time.

"If that is your prerogative. Just be at flight practice."

Thundercracker puffed a laugh. "I'll be there, hard-aft."

"You have no choice." Starscream smirked, looking smug as he gingerly stood up. Though he tried to make his motions fluid and graceful, Thundercracker noticed that there was an atypical stiffness to his usual refined movements. "You either show up, or you are fired."

Scooting back so that his wings rested against the wall behind him, he shrugged a shoulder, optics quickly scanning over Starscream's frame.

"Fired from the Decepticon army. That's a new one."

Starscream tucked the datapad under his arm and made to step away, but stopped himself.

"Oh." The red jet made a sour face, thrusting the half-empty cube of energon at his wingmate without turning towards him. "Here. I no longer have an appetite after speaking with you, and you look like molten slag."

Thundercracker narrowed his optics, ripping his gaze from Starscream, to the energon cube. It must have been a look of suspicion, because Starscream heaved an impatient sigh.

"Do you think that I tampered with it, you glitch? Just take the slagging cube and stop staring at me like an idiot."

Thundercracker took it carefully, slowly shifting his distrustful expression back on Starscream. His commander looked almost uncomfortable under the apprehensive stare and shifted his weight a little.

"Fine. If you do not want it, you do not have to drink it, you fracking waste of resources." Starscream ridiculed, fingers twitching irritably.

"I'll take it." Thundercracker said slowly, absently tilting the cube this way and that as the contents sloshed in the container.

Starscream looked pacified, contemplating his subordinate for a long moment before turning away. "Good."

"I suppose that you expect a thank you."

"To say the least."

"Well." Thundercracker raised the glass slightly. "Thank you for the half-empty energon cube. And thank you for insulting me. There is not better way to start a new terrestrial cycle than having my ego pummeled to a self-conscious pulp. This little meeting was very significant. Also, thank you for the headache that your voice never ceases to give me."

Starscream bristled, hands tightening into fists at his sides. If he had been facing his berth, Thundercracker was sure that Starscream's denta would be clenched together. As Starscream spoke, his suspicions were proven correct.

"I will meet you in 6 terrestrial hours."

"6 hours." Thundercracker took a sip of the energon, reveling in the instant feeling of rejuvenation. He was alive to fight another day, which was something that many could not boast. He was positive that Skywarp would be there to see him in a matter of minutes, whether the Constructicons let him into the bay or not. He had energon, his side had been patched up, and his commander was on his way out. All it took was another face-to-face encounter with death to make him appreciate the sanctity of life and the little things that made it bearable.

He made to take another sip of energon, though the cube was forcefully wrenched from his hand before it even reached his lips.

"Get your own energon, you ungrateful soldering iron."

He did not even have time to object before Starscream was halfway across the room with the cube, stomping like a child, and mumbling incoherencies to himself. Thundercracker was not angry—on the contrary, he felt both grateful and slightly amused to see his commander leave in such a manner.

Yet…

He finally managed to get a good look at the splotchy patched wound on Starscream's side that his commander had been careful to keep hidden. He hissed sympathetically. Judging by the sheer size, he knew that it must have been one nasty wound. Wondering how he had not previously spotted such a large patch-job, he felt (with an airy laugh of near disbelief) that his suspicions were probably correct.

He knew for sure in that instant that Starscream had lied.

Though Starscream would have denied to his death that he kind of secretly almost enjoyed the companionship of his wingmates, Thundercracker was not stupid. Starscream liked for everyone to believe that his spark was two sizes too small, but in all reality, it was only one and half sizes smaller than average. The half-size difference allowed his own self-serving, narcissistic commander to fling himself at Thundercracker in order to save his life. On _purpose_. He had, for a reason that Thundercracker could not, and did not want to understand, made a move that was ultimately very Autobot-like.

He was astounded.

He understood why Starscream did not want to admit to the 'noble action'. The self-serving prat.

Certainly, with proper reasoning, it was more likely to have been an lucky shot within the heat of battle akin to the lucky shot that knocked Thundercracker from the sky, and he would tell Starscream so, but…

He glanced to his own injured side, noting the similarity of the patched and primed hole… suspiciously similar. It was, to a trained eye, the same wound that had been patched up in the same manner. It had been made from the same gun, of that he had no doubt.

Not only had Starscream risked his life for his subordinate, but he had also lowered himself to being shot by a minibot.

His mouth tilted upwards into the beginnings of a smile, making a mental note to do something nice for his aerospace commander.

* * *

><p>AN: Maybe TC should get Starscream a new self-preservation mechanism. His seems to malfunction in the presence of Megatron.<p> 


	5. Conflict

A/N: This isn't as snarkyfun as other chapters, but it wasn't really supposed to be. Like I said, there _are_ supposed to be other... genres... is there a genre for something more resembling an oil spill? Or a mass escape at the city zoo? Monkeys and questionable fluids _everywhere._

To be honest, this was kind of a test to see how 'deep' I could be. Needless to say, it failed to be deep. It probably doesn't help that I had to slip into the inner-workings of Skywarp's CPU, who is about as deep as a kiddy-pool. His head was surprisingly devoid of anything but math equations and the occasional resounding 'Duurr huurrrr!'

Haha, just kidding. Skywarp thinks about tacos, too.

Disclaimer: Transformers © Hasbro

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><p><strong>Title:<strong> Conflict

**Characters: **Stupidwarp & Mopeycracker

**Genre:** General

**Summary:** Generally, Decepticons squish things, shoot things, explode things, and _laugh_. If this were genuinely the case, Skywarp would be the best Decepticon at all. He loves the satisfying 'crunch' of primeval species in the morning.

* * *

><p>Conflict<p>

"Huh. These kind of look like our turbines, don't they…?" Skywarp looked up from the human gripped in one hand, his face screwed up in thought. "I'm not sure how I feel about this."

Thundercracker, on average, had a variance of three expressions: Boredom, mild irritation, and incensed. At the time, if Skywarp had to gauge it, his wingmate's expression seemed to have been the innate mixture of boredom and mild irritation as he grunted a noncommittal reply, not even bothering to look up from his work at hand. Though he knew better, Skywarp chose to believe that Thundercracker was as fascinated as he was, refusing to admit that anyone could possibly be as boring as Thundercracker made himself out to be.

"These organics are so lumpy and not aerodynamic at all. There's no way they could fly, even if they wanted to. I wonder where they would store their fuel…" Skywarp mumbled, flipping the terrified human in his hand this way and that, watching in interest as its expression and color seemed to change as he moved it. At least he figured it was terrified—it was shaking, its ventilation sounded sickly and uneven, and its vocalizer had reached unnatural, screeching decibels before he threatened to see if squeezing it hard enough would pop its head off. Now it lay limp and smelly in his hand, blessedly quiet, save for the occasional whimper. He hoped that it would not secrete organic fluids in fear—if it was one thing that would have made Skywarp regret his decision to pick it up, it would have been being secreted on.

It had initially been the lumpy human's foot coverings that intrigued him. They had protruding wedges at the heel that looked just like their thrusters. He had scooped up the meatbag for the sole purpose of finding out their purpose, but quickly realized that it had hardly been worth it. They were just wedges of plastic glued to the foot coverings that seemed to serve no purpose whatsoever. In fact, they seemed to be counterproductive to providing a suitable human lifestyle.

"How do they balance on these little thrusters without wings to balance them? I think they _want_ to die."

Maybe organics were really just that stupid. He turned the human upside down before his optics, enjoying thoroughly how its air seemed to get caught in its vents while it let out little whimpers of fear.

"Well squashyman, maybe if your species would evolve a little and realize that these turbines are missing proper fuel and ejecting sites, you might have been able to get away. Too bad."

He plucked the foot coverings off of its feet with his free hand, examining the tiny items between his thumb and forefinger. He wasn't about to walk away empty handed—- and they were almost flattering, in a weird, slightly crude way. They would make a good souvenir, if nothing else.

He heard Thundercracker's engine let out a rumble beside him, and looked up just in time to watch his face turn from mild irritation, to _extreme_ irritation.

Skywarp was not intimidated.

"Hey look, TC." He held up the tiny heeled shoe before Thundercracker's narrowed optics. "I'm taking these. They're nice."

Thundercracker's optics narrowed further, planting his hands on his hips.

"Skywarp, would you stop harassing the locals and _help me_? Where the frag were you when Primus distributed attention spans?" The blue jet mumbled, glancing at the mess of fallen buildings, fires, and the distant frames of mechs within the Decepticons faction, sorting through piles of debris and carnage.

Skywarp stored the foot coverings in his subspace with a flick of his wrist, looking contemplatively skyward. "Probably distracted by something shiny. Speaking of shiny…"

He held the upside-down squishy to his optics. There was something wet on its face that seemed to be gleaming in the light, and it was now making an odd, hiccupping noise. It was also turning a funny color.

"Slaaaggg." Skywarp laughed airily. "Lookit' this. It's lubricating from its optics and turning purple." He thrust the squishy at Thundercracker, and almost laughed when his wingmate backpedaled, looking repulsed. "Aww, scared of the squishy?"

"No, it's emitting organic liquids. It's _filthy_ and I don't want it near me."

"It's weird, that's what it is." Skywarp mumbled. "They're so… primordial. And hairy. I heard that they were made from soup. Not very encouraging, is it?"

"Warp, put it down. You're acting like a sparkling. You don't even know where it's been."

"Sure I do. It was in that demolished building over there, then it tripped on its foot coverings, and then I picked it up." He smirked towards Thundercracker, who looked mildly repulsed. "Oh come on. It's not like it has a virus—- it's meat. Sentient _meat_. Not a slagging trojan."

The human let out a slurping noise, as if it was not able to get enough oxygen, making Thundercracker and Skywarp share an identical look of disgust. Suddenly Skywarp did not really feel like holding it anymore.

He prodded at it with a finger, turning it upright once more. The long organic fiber on its head swayed with every motion, and he pondered what it was used for. It was funny—he had held humans before, used them as batting practice, played hackey-sack with them, but he never just sat and watched one before.

They really were disgusting.

It once again let out a little hiccupping noise, and he heard it mumble a rough, hardly-distinguishable "Please…"

He rumbled a laugh at the pathetic sound, his attention span coming to a dangerous halt. "I assume you mean 'please put me down'." The squishy whimpered again, high pitched and desperate. A lopsided grin stretched across his face. "Well, I'm done watching you turn colors, anyway. Here ya go." He stretched out his arm and opened his hand, watching the human fall from his grip with an audio-wrenching scream. His grin warped into a scowl in record time, however, as Thundercracker caught it mid-fall with a deceptive amount of nimbleness.

"Hey!" Skywarp cried, thoroughly upset that his fun had been cut short.

Thundercracker's face darkened, looking revolted at the physical contact with the organic. He quickly bent down and herded it off of his palm, watching as it attempted a grand escape before tripping over a fallen metal beam in its panic-driven state. It spent the next several moments crawling desperately behind the cover of a large pile of debris in the middle of the demolished road. The two Seekers watched its desperate scramble, one dismayed, one glowering. They met optics once more.

"Have your wires crossed or what, Warp? How many times have we been over this? We do not. harass. civilians!" Thundercracker growled, thrusting his index finger at Skywarp's cockpit. "If it has a gun aimed at you, by all means, squish it. But do not offline it just because you like its shoes!"

Skywarp batted away Thundercracker's hand, meeting his glare defiantly. "Hey! Its shoes could have been used as little projectile weapons!"

"Oh yes, don't want to scratch your paint a little, do you?"

Skwarp frowned. "I really do not see the big deal here, TC. Look at this city-" the dark seeker gestured to the mayhem around them, the rest of the Decepticons who had accompanied them all doing their part to sift through the ruins that had once been a flourishing civilization in the distance. They were all looking for the same thing—an irregular energy source that had been a point of interest on the Decepticon's radars for several long cycles. It was a weak signal, and easily overlooked, but Soundwave was no slouch when it came to details. After observing the energy source for a considerable amount of time, Soundwave affirmed that it was being stored underground, essentially giving the Decepticons acquiescence to destroy the establishment in an attempt to find it, though the damage was primarily superficial. Their goal was not to destroy the energy source after all, simply to scare the ever living slag out the humans so that they would clear out, thus making their search easier. Scarce clusters of humans were still scattered about, some injured, some indoors, some having the guts to _drive_ away from the destruction. All of them avoided the Decepticons and left a large radius around them. At least they weren't a completely brain dead species.

The living ones should have considered themselves lucky. Though the damage had been significantly less devastating than what they normally distributed during an assault, the human numbers had taken a major blow. For every organic still ventilating, one was probably offline. The attack had been quick, efficient, and brutal. Their goal was to get in, find the irregular energy source, and get out before the Autobots reached their location. Starscream was patrolling the perimeters of the city, waiting for the first sign of Autobot activity, but Skywarp suspected that he just did not want to get dirty.

"-there are a LOT of offlined organics out there, and I don't think that I need to remind you that we did this. None of them had guns pointed at us, either. And even though we have killed hundreds of organics in just the past half hour, you are telling me not to harass this one because…?'

"Because it is not our job to take innocent life for fun. Even if they are repulsive pieces of jerky. The rest of the organics that were killed today… their deaths were… necessary. Casualties of war." Thundercracker's voice was quiet. It was not haughty, nor was his stance self-righteous in any way. It was the tone and stance of a mech who seemed to be having an internal dilemma—a dilemma that Skywarp often tried to remedy in the only way that he knew how.

His own dose of irresistibly opaque charm.

"Look." Skywarp grabbed the other seeker's wing in a firm grip, earning him an angry rev from Thundercracker's engine, but pressed in close regardless. His voice dipped low, a small frown on his lips "I know that you have a difficult time justifying the death of an unarmed life form, even if it is essentially sentient jerky with apposable thumbs. You believe in nobility, preserving innocent life, and other similar sort of morality slag that I don't care about because I like to watch things catch on fire too much. But we've been through this before. And I admit, you are probably right— I did not _need_ to drop that squishy with the shoes and try to kill it just because it is fun to watch them lubricate weird fluids. But I _wanted_ to." His frown transformed into a lopsided grin. "We're Decepticons. We're allowed to take squishies, steal their foot coverings, and then drop them. And here's the real kicker! We are allowed to do it all in the name of world domination, Cybertron, Megatron, and the good of all Mech-kind. These shoes-" he pulled one of the thruster-like shoes from his subspace, once again pinching it between his thumb and index finger "-are an offering from the natives. 'All Hail Megatron' and whatnot."

Thundercracker stared, thoroughly unimpressed.

Skywarp shrugged calmly, letting go of Thundercracker's wing.

"Here." He held out a single heeled shoe. "You can have it. As a donation to the Decepticons from the shoeless meatball you saved. Because of you, if it gets out of this situation, it will be forced to commit to a lifetime of therapy. It would have been kinder for it to offline, ya' know?"

Thundercracker snorted and smacked the offered hand away from him, making the shoe fly from Skywarp's fingers and into the nearest mound of debris. The blue Seeker's previous irritation had evolved to a full fit of bad temper.

Skywarp watched the shoe disappear into the debris, mouth falling agape. "You pit-slagger! That was mine!" he cried in near-disbelief.

Thundercracker's engine rumbled again, signifying to Skywarp that he was indeed in a right foul mood.

"No. You gave it to me, remember?" Thundercracker snarled.

"Yeah, for you to HAVE, not to throw into a collapsed building! What is your _malfunction_?" Skywarp tapped a finger on Thundercracker's helm, but it was instantly shoved away. Skywarp was undeterred and continued his rant with his usual rambunctious finesse.

"It was just a slagging organic, and it didn't even die. Did it leak on you or something? I really just don't understand." Skywarp threw his arms out, emphasizing his confusion. "I mean, you hate the Earthlings. You tell me all the time. So why are you upset that one was almost killed off? My logic says that if I don't like something, I kill it. Or maim it. Or paint facial hair on it. You, on the other hand, _saved _it. Care to fill me in on what is going through your processor? Because I sure as slag am confused."

Thundercracker's arms were crossed tightly over his chassis, an uncomfortable glare directed towards the ground slightly to his left. He seemed to be trying to conjure up something to say, but patience was not a gift that Skywarp possessed.

"Did I do something to frag you off? Did you like that organic? Did you want to keep it or something? Did you want _both_ of its shoes?"

"Warp, just shut up!" Thundercracker snapped, uncrossing his arms. "I do not care about the slagging organics, I do not care if they die, and I definitely do not care about their _shoes_!"

Skywarp shifted, eying the rubble pile that the organic had hidden behind. He no longer sensed a heat signature, so he assumed that it had gotten away… He lifted his optics to meet Thundercracker's.

"Then why did you save it?"

Thundercracker revved. "I told you! It was an unarmed femme! It can die for all I care, but it is not going to die by our hands, got it?"

"It wasn't going to die by our hands. It was going to die by splattering all over the ground."

Thundercracker was not amused by his snark. "You know what I mean."

"You are so fracking' confusing sometimes." Skywarp put a weary hand to his helm.

"Look. For the sake of simplicity, I will put this into terms that even you can understand. Organics are _pathetically_ inferior. They are so inferior that they do not need our help to kill them. Therefore, we should not kill them unless they have a death wish and openly defy us. Capiche?"

"Well they are really dumb... But isn't that even more reason to extinguish the species?"

"If they try to shoot us, yes. Then we can justify it."

"Justify? That sounds boring." Skywarp made a face. "I think that I will just stick to stepping on whatever squishy I want, whenever I want. You know I like you TC, but to be blunt, you are a danger to everything exciting and interesting. I don't know if you have acquired an anti-fun glitch, or maybe your amusement–center was damaged beyond repair, but I have no qualms about squishing defenseless, hairy femmes, and I don't think that you should either. It's fun. I enjoy fun." The purple jet shook his head, puffing a small laugh through his vents. "Ultimately, Megatron is not complaining about our squishy-squishing habits, so I will continue to do so until he says 'stop using the organics as target practice'. I will also take their shoes if I want to." He finished his spiel with a pat to Thundercracker's shoulder, looking quite at ease.

Thundercracker's face was set, narrowed optics staring unseeingly ahead.

"Sorry to trod on your morals and slag, but I do what I want, and what Megatron tells me to. I kinda miss the days when you used to join me, you know. You used to laugh at things like this."

"Well don't count on a spectacular comeback." Thundercracker mumbled. "I'm over it."

"Boring slagger." Skywarp said in good humor, though it was lost on deaf audios. "So yeah, I guess it's time to find where the weird signal is."

Thundercracker refused to acknowledge Skywarp after that moment, and instead wordlessly returned to dig through the rubble, the immediate air around him gloomy and morose. Skywarp decided to give the blue jet some space, shrugging off the situation with all the grace that his short attention span allowed him. He didn't want to get the gloom on him anyway. He had done all he could to remind his friend of his place amongst the Decepticons. The truth hurt. Thundercracker would sulk for a while, but it would pass.

It always did.

He decided at long last to focus his selective attention on helping the Decepticon cause and assisting in the search for the weird energy signature. Unfortunately, it did not take him long to get bored and instead turn his efforts towards making small castles and various crudely-made structures of mangled metal and drywall. Every once in a while he ran across something interesting amongst the debris, which he wasted no time either adding to his mangled-metal castles or to his subspace. He was especially giddy when he ran across a relatively unscathed vending machine, and wasted no time delicately storing it away. He had always wanted a vending machine.

He paused what he was doing, jerking his optics upright as the unmistakable sound of a Seeker's engines sounded in the near distance. Starscream had been patrolling the immediate area, watching dutifully for the inevitable Autobot signatures, and Skywarp knew that it was just a matter of time before he returned with a command to withdraw. As expected, his commander's distinctive voice sounded over his comm.

'_Decepticons, the artifact has been located and the Autobots are ten minutes south of the city. Regroup and retreat back to base immediately_.'

Skywarp got to his feet and dusted his hands as one by one, the Decepticons abandoned their rubbish piles and took to the air. He watched Thundercracker transform and take off as well, noticing the nearly undetectable slump of his frame. He almost felt bad for blatantly ribbing on Thundercracker's deep-seated beliefs. Almost.

He was, in the end, just doing his best to look after his war buddy in the only way that he knew how. Thoughts of mercy or compassion were dangerous. It was a noble exploit, sure, but Skywarp had not joined the Decepticons to be noble.

The _Autobots_ were noble. The Autobots were compassionate and merciful. Decepticons were _not_, and he was not about to let his wingmate get sucked into the sentimental ways of the enemy faction. If it meant tromping on fundamental beliefs and outlooks, then so be it. Tromping on things was Skywarp's specialty.

He congratulated himself for his outstanding ability to be an extraordinary tool of Megatron's, and thanked Vector Sigma for forgetting to give him an empathetic nature. Grinning haughtily, he took a few running steps forward before launching himself into the air, transforming, and taking off after the rest of his faction.

Skywarp did not even take notice that he had subconsciously side-stepped a single human in his path, cowering pathetically on the floor of his half-demolished car.

* * *

><p>AN: LERROOOYYYYYY JENKINS.


	6. Forgiveness

A/N: Okay, so the last chapter seemed… unfinished to me. There had to be closure. I WAS going to post this next week, but I decided to be a nice author and indulge you.

So once again, I have created a monster. An unusual, flamboyant rendition of the Seekers that is kind of… dare I say… _endearing_? Kind of like a baby squid with one eye. Or something.

Unfortunately this chapter once again does not contain much Starscream. 'Much', meaning none at all. I know everyone misses his treacherous hide, so the next chapter will be mostly Starscream in all of his primping, pretentious glory.

* * *

><p><strong>Title:<strong> Forgiveness (continued from Chapter 5: Conflict)

**Characters: **Thundercracker, & Skywarp

**Genre:** Humor

**Summary:** Because with Skywarp's charm, who could possibly stay mad at him?

* * *

><p>Forgiveness<p>

The search for the odd energy source had been a… success, for lack of better terms. They had burned down a thriving settlement in order to find it, without even knowing what it was. Regardless, they had definitely found it, retrieved it, and wasted no time chucking it into the ocean upon revealing what it truly was.

It had been an extremely radioactive chunk of Cobalt, probably kept tightly sealed away until the humans could have safely disposed of it. Unfortunately the Decepticons, being the curious mechanoids they were, did not hold back in their desire to obtain the object that their radars had hardly been able to pick up.

Needless to say, the lack of 'giant-weapon-of-mass-destruction', or 'super-rock with super ability to kill all Autobots' was a major disappointment to the Decepticons. Granted, the radioactive molecules in the cobalt was a type of radiation that they could have potentially harnessed, but it would not have been at all worth it. So in within Megatron's disappointment, he chose the logical option of disposing the large chunk of radioactive debris rather unsafely into ocean ten miles south of the base. It was only a matter of time until Thundercracker expected to start witnessing three-eyed fish, glowing sharks, and eels with two tentacles swim by the base's windows.

Though it was debatable, Thundercracker was fairly certain that he been more upset by the ordeal than Megatron had been, and not for the same reasons. He was not at all pleased that it had been a useless raid. If it had been something that they could have effectively harnessed and used, then at least the brutal, verging on cruel demolition of the human settlement could have been justified.

But it could not be justified at all. They had murdered en masse for a lump of of metal.

Thundercracker did not like organics. Humans were stupid, complacent, and vile. He would not ever think of them as anything above insects, but at the same time, it was simply depraved to believe that it was okay to murder them for fun. His philosophy was to leave them alone, fight for their fuel in the name of the new uprising of Cybertron, and leave. If the planet was to die then, so be it.

It boiled down to the fact that he simply did not want the blood of individual, easily avoidable deaths to be on his hands. The philosophy of cold murder was not in his programming.

Unfortunately, because of his discomfort, his exchange with Skywarp at the demolition site had left him in a perpetually ominous mood. He had made it a point to avoid his fellow Decepticons at the base while he brooded over the situation. He especially avoided Skywarp, which, as always, proved to be difficult since the purple jet was essentially a parasitic prankster with no attention span to be spoken of. He also needed a considerate amount of supervision, which was more often than not a grating experience. Skywarp had initially seemed baffled by Thundercracker's sudden deliberate attempt to avoid speaking to him, but did not seem too terribly put off by the coldness. It was not like it was new.

But Thundercracker instantaneously knew that his sullen solitude was about to be disrupted. It always started with the sound of his door opening…

He hated it when his door opened.

He shuttered his optics without turning around, recognizing the energy signal of his very own purple nuisance, who was no doubt about to make him yearn to curl up under his recharge berth and never crawl back out. The sound of the opening door was instantly filled with the sound of violent rustling, grunting, and overworked systems. A heavy sigh of relief followed a moment after, along with an uncharacteristically soft, familiar voice. "Look, TC…"

He listened to the familiar sounds of Cybertronian systems whirring, hydraulics wheezing, and an engine thrumming behind him. What really worried him were the sounds of the near-constant, less-violent rustling from before and a heavy 'thump' of something being set on the floor. He felt the vibrations travel through his chair and tried to convince himself that if he did not acknowledge it, it would go away. "I know that the whole drop-the-squishy-and-steal-its-shoes ordeal upset you…" Skywarp said quietly.

"Uh huh." Thundercracker mumbled against his better judgment, resting his chin in his hand.

"And that maybe you're miffed that I didn't really want to listen to you, and told you that your morals and slag are pretty lame…"

"Uh huh."

"But I do know that you like organic stuff."

Thundercracker made a face, but did not turn around. There was no way that he was going to take a comment like that sitting down. Metaphorically, of course. "I do not _like _organic stuff, I just think it-"

"Hold that thought, TC. I was just saying, I know you like organic stuff, so I got you a gift. You know, so you'll stop sulking."

Thundercracker's optics shot open with newly awakened vigor, suddenly fully paying attention. His ridges furrowed in both suspicion and confusion as he slowly swiveled hid chair towards Skywarp. "A gift…? What could you have possibly-" Thundercracker made a harsh choking noise in his vocalizer as if he had gotten a piece of an energon goodie stuck in his intake, and could not find his vocalizer for at least half of a minute. After his choking fit had subsided, he could not stop his mouth from falling slack as he processed the visual of the monstrosity.

"A tree."

Skywarp's mouth spread into a grin, looking especially proud of himself as he poked his head around the trunk of a very large, leafy tree, roots dangling from the bottom as if it had been ripped straight out of the ground. Dirt clung to the roots, falling in clumps every time Skywarp jarred it. "Yep. Your very own tree. What're you going to name it? I think it looks like Brawl, so it could be Brawl Jr. But it also looks like that old bat you like to watch. Er... what is her name...?" He tightly pressed his lips together in concentration.

"Judge Judy." Thundercracker said automatically, unable to tear his eyes away from all of the _nature _occupying his room that had not been there before. "I am not naming a tree Judge Judy. I am not naming this tree at all. They are not sentient. Also-" Thundercracker's optics lowered to Skywarp's partially hidden feet, feeling something in his essence dying as he spotted the mess that bad been tracked into his room.. "-you nut-wrenching motherboard, you are tracking in dirt."

Skywarp looked down as well, as if noticing the dirt trail for the first time. "Well, it's a really good thing that you like organic stuff, otherwise that would be an issue."

"I do not like organic stuff. _Especially_ dirt."

"Well…" Skywarp held out the tree a few inches closer towards Thundercracker's position, as if it would help Thundercracker either see it better, or like it more. Unfortunately, Thundercracker had no trouble seeing it, nor did he think he could ever like a tree. Especially a dying tree that was covered in dirt and taking up one-fourth of his already-limited room space. "What about the actual tree part? Do you like that?"

"It's beautiful. Now put it back."

"I knew that you'd like i- Wait… _What_?" Skywarp backpedaled, looking genuinely shocked. The tree followed suit, nearly knocking him over before he managed to grab it and regain his balance. He leaned the tree against the side of Thundercracker's wall with no visible attempt at gentleness. "Do you have _any idea_ how much trouble it was to pick the best looking tree, pull it out of the ground, and transport it back here? I did just _for you_, and now you want me to _put it back_?" Skywarp practically hissed, his index finger pointing violently towards the immobile tree.

Thundercracker watched a few leaves fall from the branches and onto his floor. He leaned back in his chair, pressing his fingers together. "That is exactly what I'm saying."

"I can't believe you! I did this all out of the niceness of my little golden spark!"

"And I am sure that I would have appreciated it if it were not a dirty, dying piece of vegetation with a squirrel on it. As it is..." Thundercracker trailed off, staring dryly at his wingmate.

"So you don't appreciate it?"

Thundercracker looked it up and down. There was nothing extraordinary about it, except for the fact that it was so tall that it could barely stand completely upright in his room.

"May I be honest?"

"I would feel better if you weren't."

Thundercracker spread his hands. "In that case, I love it. I love the dirt, the leaves, the squirrel, its feces, and even the sudden increase of oxygen. Not to mention the many new ecosystems for me to enjoy firsthand. And by the looks of the swing on the lower branch, you even fought off a bunch of sparklings to get it for me. I'm touched."

"Actually, it was two nearly mature humans fighting for the territory or dominance." Skywarp shrugged. "Ultimately, I won the territory and the tree. Glad you like it. So Judge Judy it is?"

"Absolutely not."

"Well someone in this room has got to claim the name, and it's not going to be me."

"Fine. The Squirrel may be Judge Judy then, if you have your spark set on it."

"Fair enough... So, where should I put it?"

"Put it...?" Thundercracker looked the tree over once more, before tilting his head towards Skywarp. "Just a forewarning, I am going to be completely honest now."

Skywarp frowned. "No."

"What do you mean no?"

"I mean." Skywarp began. "That your honesty is oftentimes painful and I am unable to deal with that. So no."

"Skywarp. This tree is unsanitary and wrinkly with too much cellulose to be at all beneficial. I think that you should put it back where you found it and clean up the dirt, because I am certainly not impressed, nor do I feel any less like sulking."

Skywarp slumped every so slightly. "You proved me right once again. Your words were painful and offensive. Regardless, I am not convinced of your dislike." He crossed his arms for a moment, looking suddenly deep in thought. Thundercracker's optics narrowing slightly to mask his unease. A thinking Skywarp was a dangerous Skywarp.

A couple of moments passed before the dark seeker uncrossed his arms, flashed Thundercracker a charming smile, and wrapped his arms around the tree.

"Actually-" Skywarp began, hoisting the tree up until the top was somewhat squashed against the ceiling. "-I think that it would look better in this corner. It will provide you with shade, oxygen, and an occasional walnut."

Thundercracker jumped out of his chair and in front of Skywarp, holding both of his arms out as if to stop him. "Woah woah woah! I do not think so."

"Don't be ridiculous, TC. You just haven't had time to bond with it yet. Give it a week, and you, the tree, and Judge Judy will be like a new, inter-species Triune!"

Thundercracker almost shuddered at the thought, but rested his hands against the trunk of the tree to stop Skywarp's advancement.

"Warp, I'm being serious. Put it back. You're going to break something."

"I'm being careful, don't worry. Oh, woops…" he looked sheepish for a split second as a low branch knocked over a stack of datapads. Thundercracker clenched and unclenched his hands, looking increasingly distressed. "Okay, _now_ I'm being careful."

"Warp, seriously…"

"I am being serious. I am not dragging this all the way back to Central Park, so you are just going to have to deal."

Thundercracker face went flat. "You stole this from Central Park?"

Skywarp planted his feet farther apart in an attempt to keep his balance and shook his head vigorously. "Stole? Slag no. I won it fair and square against those cannibalistic humans. Only the best for my favorite mech who is blue and white and grumpy all over."

Thundercracker heaved a heavy sigh from his vents. "Right now I am fairly convinced that you just did this because you knew that it was going to fritz me off and cause me to fall into stress-induced stasis lock, not because you are actually even remotely sorry. Well congratulations. I have a thirty foot tall tree in my room, a new squirrel, and an impressive collection of contaminated matter on my floor. I am officially fritzed, and I very much feel like hurting you."

Skywarp peeked out from behind the tree.

"I wouldn't try it. I have what is essentially a thirty-foot club covered in squirrel feces. You have two fists and a severe case of germ-o-phobia. I think we both know who the champion is."

Thundercracker instinctively backed away from the tree, wiping his hands, which had made contact with the trunk, on his thigh plating.

Skywarp grinned.

"Yep, Skywarp the Victorious. That's me. Now, believe it or not, I really was thinking about you when I risked my life for this tree. I didn't know there was a squirrel in it, though. I just know that you like organic stuff, and don't even _try_ to tell me otherwise."

Thundercracker looked sickened. "They're nice to _look at_, Warp. I don't want one in my room."

"But it will provide shade for those unbearably hot days."

"We are three miles below sea level."

"In addition, it is symbolic of my victory against cannibalism."

"I really have my doubts that-"

"It is the greatest tree with a swingset to ever set root on the Nemesis, and it is _yours_, TC! Think of the possibilities!"

Thundercracker frowned, sending him a harsh look. "Skywarp!"

Skywarp paused, optics wide. "Yes?"

Thundercracker glowered. "If you do not put the tree back where you found it, you are in deep slag. Now get this tree, that squirrel, its droppings, and all of those dirt clods out of my room, and back to Central Park. No dropping it in the middle of the ocean, either. We've already named the squirrel, so by default, we have already formed an attachment."

Skywarp rested his head contemplatively against the tree, still holding it in a bear-hug.

"Well, I _am_ rather attached…"

"That's right. If we kill Judge Judy, who will uphold the law within this tree?"

Skywarp shifted, still deep in thought.

"Getting it here was a slagload of work…"

"Well you should have considered the consequences." Thundercracker scolded. "That seems to be a reoccurring theme for you, doesn't it? Not thinking things through. You are a very special breed, you are."

"Actually, I did think this through and I thought you'd love it!" Skywarp grunted a little as he shifted the tree and shook a dirt clod off of his foot. "I thought that you'd dedicate a whole corner to it, name it, feed it sardines or whatever it eats, and forget that you were ever upset with me. I also thought that you might dedicate your other corner to my generosity and considerate nature, but both of my notions were obviously wrong."

"Obviously."

"You know, it's human nature to give dying vegetation to their sparkmate when the other is angry. Vegetation evidently appeases them. It apparently does not work for you."

"No. It does not. There are a few problems with your statement that would immediately rule that theory out, anyway." He crossed his arms over his chest plate. "One, you are not my sparkmate, and thank _Primus_ for that. Second, that is a human gesture. Why would a giant chunk of dying vegetation appease me?"

Skywarp shrugged as much as his position allowed him.

"Just thought I'd give it a shot. If I didn't do this, you would not speak to me for three terrestrial weeks. It's boring when you don't talk to me."

Thundercracker silently mulled over the situation, opening and closing his mouth twice before sinking back down in his chair.

"Put the tree back where you found it, and I promise I will speak to you."

"You _are_ speaking to me."

Thundercracker sunk further into his chair, frowning.

"Then put the tree back where you found it, and I promise that not only will I continue to speak with you, but I swear by the rust spot on the Command Center's southern wall that I will not murder you during your recharge cycle."

Skywarp thought about it for a moment. "Deal. But you can't ever say that I never did anything nice for you."

Thundercracker sent another wry glance towards the dirt pile.

"Sure."

Skywarp seemed to have caught the sarcasm, sending an exasperated look towards the ceiling. "Haven't you ever heard of the phrase, 'it's the thought that counts'?"

"Yes. But it only applies to those who actually think before they act."

Skywarp glared, his systems giving an irritated rev. "Never mind. You don't deserve this tree." The dark jet turned around, still hug-holding the tree around its wide trunk, making his way blindly towards the door. "Don't even bother talking to me or not-killing me in my sleep. I don't need you anyway, you squishy-hugging bolt-for-brains..." he mumbled. "No more presents for Grumpycracker. Not ever."

"_Exactly_ where it was, Skywarp. Plant it, don't just drop it."

"Yeah yeah…" Skywarp muttered, groping for the door panel. Thundercracker watched in twisted amusement as Skwarp tried to balance the tree and open the door at the same time. It took a few moments, but he did eventually open it and manage to drag the tree out, leaving behind a pile of stripped leaves, twigs, more dirt, and an abandoned bird's nest.

Thundercracker vented a sigh of relief as the door hissed shut, severing the very tip of the tree. It landed on floor just inside of his door.

He sat up straight in his chair, giving his room a single look over. He wondered how it was possible for what had been such a tidy room to turn into a warzone in a matter of five minutes.

Then he remembered that it was _Skywarp_.

He took a moment to seriously contemplate installing some turrets and Skywarp-proof walls, but realized that it would not have been worth the effort. He would never, ever, not ever again experience true peace or hygiene.

Never.

He pushed off of the ground, swiveling once more towards his computer console with every intention of returning to his research. He found himself quite unable to start, however, as a set of small, beady black eyes gaped up at him.

Thundercracker stared.

It chattered and flicked its bushy, brown tail.

"Judge Judy…" he greeted dully.

* * *

><p>AN: It seems that whenever Skywarp visits Thundercracker in his room, he always brings something disgusting and organic with him. Maybe TC should start making a conscious effort to visit Skywarp instead. He could bring a television that is stuck on the History channel, read him the encyclopedia, or play the 'quiet game'.

Yeah, that would teach him.


	7. Fancy Meeting You Here

**A/N:** I am currently bedridden with a horrible illness that I have temporarily inherited from my brother, and I have nothing better to do than sleep and write until grey-matter starts to leak from my ears. I had EVERY intention of breaking my horrible habit of making every chapter into some sort of comical, sitcom-like occurrence, but at this point in time I do not feel like being anything _but_ comical. I'm slightly miserable, and I want to laugh, and everyone likes to laugh, so Skywarp is going to save the day by being annoying.

I have written all three together, I've written Skywarp and Thundercracker, Thundercracker and Screamer… Now, it is only logical that it is Starscream and Skywarp's turn. I have to break in my new keyboard anyhow. The backspace button is so tiny… itty bitty little backspace, and SUPER HUGE ENTER KEY. It's like they were feeding the enter key growth hormones and neglecting my backspace. For science.

Anyway, am I about to rewrite a generic idea that has been done to death for my own amusement?

_Yes._

But I think that Thundercracker needs a break from Skywarp's 'affection'. Does anyone vote that it is Starscream's turn for Skywarp's exclusive brand of love? Anyone?

Disclaimer: Transformers are spiffy, but not my property.

* * *

><p><strong>Title:<strong> Fancy Meeting You Here

**Characters:**Starscream & Skywarp

**Genre:** Humor (Oh, well what else is new?)

**Summary:** Starscream does not have time for stupid. Unfortunately, no one cares.

* * *

><p>Fancy Meeting You Here<p>

Starscream's meeting with Megatron had, predictably, ended in a painful cuff, a dented wall, a dented helm, and dented pride. His proposition had landed on deaf audios as usual, and his brilliant idea had been cast aside to the extremely populated 'Starscream's graveyard of brilliant, unexploited ideas'.

If Megatron would just listen to him for once, he knew they would have achieved absolute dominion _vorns _ago.

He was so tired of playing. He was tired of stupidity. He was tired of failing one mission after another, watching the Decepticons fail to conquer the miserable, pathetic, putrid, _organic _planet known as Earth. He was tired of his brutish leader leading them time after time straight into the same dead end after discoursing so many awe-inspiring promises that had not come to pass. Starscream could see straight through his leader's splendid words.

Megatron was deluded. They were getting nowhere.

It did not take rocket science to achieve world domination, but it did require a vast amount of cunning. Starscream's cunning was exactly why Megatron kept him close, however, what use was it when the Decepticon leader refused to listen to it?

Starscream fumed in slowly rising ire, stewing over the war and the stand-still that it had come to.

It was nothing new to have his plans violently shot down, but the sting of humiliation and indignation did not fade over time. In fact, each time Megatron brushed off Starscream's ideas in favor of his own, less discreet ones, Starscream's feelings of detestation and degradation only seemed to grow. He was beginning to tire of consistently being brushed aside. He was the second in command— right hand of the Decepticon army, second to only Megatron himself. Did he not deserve a say in the direction that the Decepticon forces were heading? Did he not deserve to at least be _heard_ over the arrogance of his commander?

He stared unseeingly into his data pad as he walked, too blind with rage to truly read what was on it. He stared at it so that he did not have to look at the mechs that jeered at him as he stormed by. He was afraid that if he caught sight of a single heckling glance, it would be the fuel he needed to snap and pounce.

A single, bitter glance towards the bent and now-dysfunctional null ray mounted on his arm, and another observative sweep of his new collection of dents reminded him that a fight would not have been a favorable idea by any means. So instead, he glared at his datapad with all of the vehemence he could assemble.

If optics could melt Cybertronian alloy, the pad would have been demolished.

An intense feeling of urgency overtook him as he approached his quarters. He doubled his pace, simply wanting more than anything on Earth, Cybertron, or even the deep unknowns of space to move from the hallways of the Nemesis, which were always free game, to the familiar and safe comforts of his quarters to fix his dysfunctional and slightly bent null ray cannon.

Finally face to face with his door, he looked away from his datapad just long enough to key in his security code with a speed previously unknown to even him. The door hissed open, and he stepped into his dark quarters with an immense sense of relief. He was safe.

No longer having the need to falsely read his datapad, he lowered it to his side, slumping in his newfound state of comfort.

"Lights at fifty percent."

The room was instantly illuminated with soft lighting, revealing his untouched and neat work desk, his recharge berth, and his computer console. He contemplated momentarily heading straight for his private wash rack, but decided that his would not truly be at ease until his null ray had been repaired. He took several strides into his room, heading for his work bench, and tossed the unread datapad on a small table as he passed it.

"Woah… Nice dent!"

Starscream faltered mid-step, every system jolting with an instinctual burst of energy as his survival programming kicked in. His head whipped towards the voice, his frame tense, ready to pounce.

Skywarp grinned sheepishly at him.

"Primus, Megatron really mauled you good this time, didn't he?"

Starscream's face went from apprehensive to slack in record time, unable to suppress his stare of disbelief, though he knew to his very spark that he should not have been at all surprised.

He should _not_ have been surprised.

But this… was a very unwelcome surprise.

Skywarp continued to smile from his position halfway through his wall. It was almost as if he had been used as a battering ram head-first through his wall from the outside, though the lack of a large, gaping hole disproved that theory. It was obvious to Starscream that it had been a fantastic display of sophisticated stupidity that had resulted in Skywarp's upper torso's presence in his room, not an act of violence. His senseless wingmate had warped himself straight into the wall. How it was possible for such a thing to happen when eighty percent of his programming was dedicated to nothing _but_ precise calculations, he did not know.

Starscream's optics narrowed further, his expression switching from disbelief to his typical characteristic glare of irritation.

Skywarp made a soft, unsure noise in his vocalizer, meeting Starscream's perturbed gaze with his own innocent one.

"What are you doing in my wall…?" Starscream asked, his voice just barely a step above a dangerous mumble.

"Um…" Skywarp looked slightly unsure. "What… are you _not _doing in your wall..?

"Skywarp, if you think for a moment that I have time for stupid questions, or any similar form of your special brand of stupidity for that matter, your CPU is shattered… That doesn't even make _sense_."

"Not everything has to make sense Screamer." Skywarp rolled his optics theatrically. "Here you are, living in your logical, ration little world, and here I am, stuck in your wall for no rhyme or reason. Just stuck here."

"You were after my energon stash."

Skywarp's mouth opened, looking upset. "M-me? After… after your stash? Oh Screamer, just when you think you know a mech…I had hoped that you thought higher of me than that." He paused under Starscream's scrutinizing glare. "I just wanted to visit. Hi, Screamer."

Starscream's optics were dangerous slits.

Skywarp squirmed uncomfortably, though his mobility was severely lacking. Cybertronians were not particularly flexible to begin with, but the fact that the wall surrounding his torso, his arms, and half of his wings was air-tight against his frame made it all the more difficult.

"Look. Is it so wrong to fight for your energy ration? Feast or famine, Screamer."

"The energon I have in this room is absolutely no different than the energon in the rec room. Now beg tell me—what possessed you to try to sneak into my room for the sole purpose of achieving the exact same energon that you could get freely at any time from the rec room?"

"It makes me feel like I'm hunting for my food. I'm nourishing my primordial instinct. Literally."

Starscream did not reply. Skywarp did not deserve one.

"Soooo… guess what?" Skywarp asked quietly after a drawn-out period, as if he had a secret to tell.

"What…?" Starscream asked lowly, irritated, but still not quite sure what to think about the situation.

"I'm stuck in your wall."

Starscream exposed his denta with a disgusted sneer.

"Yes. I can see that. And I have this tenacious feeling that you deserve it, too."

Skywarp shifted his stare uncomfortably towards the floor for a few moments, before braving another look at Starscream's face.

"I know what I want for my birthday."

Starscream once again refused to humor him with a reply, simply at ease glowering at the purple menace for all it was worth.

"I want out of your wall."

"And into my energon stash, I assume." Starscream concluded, though not without his usual hint of malice.

Skywarp heaved a small sigh of relief, offering up a smile. "I knew you were the best Air Commander ever. I'll customize you a mug. #1 Aerospace Commander. I'll put a heart on it."

"Yes… a ceramic mug declaring my supremacy. Not only that, but it will have a feminine shape symbolic of _affection_ on it. Just what I always wanted. If_ that _does not prove that I am fit to lead the Decepticons, nothing will_."_

"Yeah, I'd follow someone with a heart on their mug. Now help me out? I can't feel my arms."

Starscream audibly scoffed.

"No."

"Buh! But my _birthday_. Starscream, this is for my _birthday_. Think about it."

"Be silent, you uncivilized creaton." Starscream turned his back to Skywarp, setting his mangled null ray on his workbench, giving it a visual once-over. "It would just be that much more satisfying for me if I left you, because it is the exact opposite of what you want. You got yourself into this mess, so I think that it would be in your best interest to get yourself out."

"But would it be in _your_ best interest?"

Starscream could physical hear the devious grin in Skywarp's voice, which very nearly made him fold from all of the untold promises of suffering that the tone held. He quickly regained his composure, however, and glanced back at the mechanical menace in his wall with no evident fear.

"I have ways of silencing you, Skywarp. This is your punishment, not mine."

Skywarp 'hmmm'ed, once again looking contemplative. "I don't know about that."

"You are immobile, defenseless, and there is no one who would willingly come to your aid. I could maim you, infect you, fill your cranial unit with a roto-rooter, and alter your language disk to speak nothing but broken French. I _dare _you to try something_, _got it?"

"Oiu, señor."

Starscream nodded curtly.

"So… you're really not going to help me out of your wall?"

"I would rather feast upon radioactive waste."

There was a long moment where the two Seekers stared at one another, Starscream unimpressed, Skywarp upset. Suddenly, Skywarp opened his mouth, inhaling an exaggerated amount of air into his intakes.

"OH SUZANNA! DON'T YOU CRY FOR ME! I COME FROM ALABAMA WITH A BANJO ON MY KNEE!"

Starscream backpedaled one step due to the sheer volume of the sudden song, clawing his hands in both pain and anger.

"Skywarp!" He shouted threateningly.

Skywarp grinned at the reaction, inhaling once more. "I COME FROM ALABAMA WITH A BANJO ON MY KNEE! I'M GOING TO LOUISIANA, MY TRUE LOVE FOR TO SEE!"

His voice echoed through the room with a strange, violent vehemence that Starscream knew full well carried past his own room. There was a loud resounding bang of someone throwing something heavy at the wall, originating from the quarters directly next to his.

"SHUT UP IN THERE!" The slightly muffled voice of Ramjet shouted through the wall.

Starscream clenched his hands into fists, picked up the nearest item large enough to do damage—his null ray- and hurled it at the wall directly above Skywarp's torso. It loudly impacted the wall, ricocheted off the metal surface, and clattered to the ground. Skywarp was not able to turn his head to view the damage, but Starscream was satisfied that he had made his point.

Skywarp stared.

"I hope that you're not expecting me to fix that."

"And I hope you are not expecting any help, you useless cog. Never… and I mean _never... ever_ sing again."

Skywarp looked focused and grunted softly as he once again tried squirming to no avail. His expression turned to one of bitter resign. "Well fine. I don't need your stupid help. I am perfectly content sitting right here, in your wall, with numb arms, no mobility, and no energy left for warping to happiness. I have the internet and Angry Birds. I also don't need to sing to be happy. I'll find my happiness in KNOCKING DOWN BLOCKS WITH A LIVID BIRD!"

Starscream rounded on him, looking quite serious. He thrust a finger at the trapped Seeker's face.

"You look here, Skywarp. It is your idiocy that put you in this predicament, which is exactly why I am leaving you here to rot until I believe you have suffered enough. _But so help me_, if I hear one word out of your vocalizer…" Starscream hissed, harshly prodding his finger at Skywarp's nose. "-I will not hesitate to stay true to my word and rip it out."

"So help _you_?" Skywarp shook his head free off Starscream's finger. "Um. Excuse me Egoscream, I know the universe revolves around you and everything, but _I'm _the one who's stuck."

Starscream prodded his nose once more with more vigor than necessary. "ONE word, Skywarp! I do not want to even know that you're here! If you can do that, I will see to it that you are freed. But if you irritate me… I swear by Megatron's ugly, rusting helmet that you will continue to rot here for days."

Skywarp snapped his denta towards the offending limb, adopting an appearance of irritability. Starscream pulled his finger away and drew himself up to his full height. He sniffed haughtily, grabbed his fallen (and even more dented) null ray, and turned his back towards Skywarp with an air of finality.

"I don't even rot- I rust. And there is no way you are getting that mug now. No slagging way. I'll get Megatron a mug. It will say '#1 Decepticon Leader', which he is, by the way. I'll bring him fresh energon every morning in it."

Starscream listened to his spiel, literally _feeling_ his earlier irritation seeping back full force. He clenched his fists so tight that it was very nearly painful, though he took no notice.

Only Skywarp would be so stupid to bait him while rendered completely immobile.

"I won't put a heart on it though. I will draw on it the severed head of Optimus Prime! In fact, his mug WILL be the severed head of Optimus Prime! I will-"

"SHUT UP!" Starscream turned around with a grace that only he could possibly achieve, and smashed the thickest part of his null ray down on Skywarp's cranial unit. A brilliant, resounding 'KLANG' of metal on metal rang through the room, the null ray snappinfg in half by the force of the blow. The loud sound disguised even Skywarp's cry of pain and surprise.

Starscream cycled air through his vents rapidly, still holding the snapped ray at the ready. Skywarp's head was limply hanging forward, the low sounds of static radiating from his helm. He groaned softly, but did not move.

"Ow… _zzg_... That was absolutely unnecessary… I think I just lost all of the data I have ever collected on walking. I will never be able to walk again, and it's all your fault. I am going to have to learn to walk on my hands now."

Starscream's engine revved its displeasure as he looked down at his busted null ray. He did not regret smashing the slag out of Skywarp, but wished that he had at least grabbed some scrap metal instead. He would have to completely reconstruct his weapon, and it was all Skywarp's fault…

He once again turned his back to his underling, and made his way to his work desk. He plopped down in his chair without a single backward glance, and crossly set his nullray cannon in front of him.

"I might need a motor chair… or we could put wheels on Frenzy, you could give me the remote control, and I could use him as my own personal mobile chair. Might be a tight fit though… Honestly, I wish I could begrudge you right now, Screamer, but I am just way too distracted and slightly excited by the thought of making Frenzy into the most awesome chair ever. I'll paint flames on him and give him a rocket pack. I'll charge credits for Frenzy-rides around the base. Think I can enter him into the pine car derb-"

Skywarp's voice was blessedly cut off when Starscream turned a small knob on the side of his helm, effectively muting his sound input. He had decided that it was either force himself to ignore his underling, or knock him unconscious, which had already proved to be difficult. He ultimately decided that it would be much less work to merely ignore the Philistine. He reveled in the silence for a few moments before returning to his work.

It did not take Starscream long to descent into a quiet, mild sulk as he tinkered with his gun, disassembling it, making notes of the damage assessment, measuring, and saving any useable parts that he could as he went along. He was pleasantly surprised to find that he had actually managed to temporarily forget the presence of the other Seeker, at least, until the lights started to flash.

Starscream tensed in his seat as the lights flashed off. He set down his tools, and turned around in his chair with a hint of confusion. The lights flashed on again after several seconds, though they were considerably brighter than the intensity that he usually set them at.

Starscream turned his audials back on a split second after watching Skywarp's mouth move as if he were speaking, and felt his aggravation festering once more as the lights flashed off.

"Lights at 70 percent." Skywarp said through the darkness, though it sounded nothing like Skywarp at all… Starscream felt a twinge of despair as he realized that Skywarp was executing an unnervingly accurate imitation of his own voice.

The lights flashed back on, revealing Skywarp's proud smirk.

"Lights at fifty percent." Starscream said, instantly catching Skywarp's attention. The lighting dimmed considerably, and Skywarp wore an expression akin a deer about to be hit by a car. "So. You've been practicing."

"Starscream, I _dare_ you to tell me that I have something better to do than breach your voice-activated controls. Seriously, I either do that, or start singing again. It's your choice. By the way, I know all of the lyrics to the Bohemian Rhapsody. All of them." He looked up at Starscream's lights. "Orrr, another option is for you to bring me energon so I can _get out of this slagging wall and back to my life_. Cross my spark and hope to smelt, if you give me one half-cube of energon, I will warp out of here and not attempt to steal your rations for a week. A whole week."

"Skywarp." Starscream said levelly. "Your suffering pleases me. A lot. Letting you go free without anything less than either yours or Megatron's ultimate demise would just be insulting."

Skywarp make a tsking noise in his vocalizer and sighed dramatically. "If you say so." He smiled, his optics half-shuttered as he once again mimicked Starscream's raspy voice. " Lights at full capacity."

The lights blazed brilliantly.

"Energon dispenser, on."

His small, personal energon dispenser began to leak the pink, liquid energy without a cube underneath to catch it.

"SKYWARP!"

"Thermostat at 260 degrees Celsius."

There was an immediate raise in temperature.

"Fans activate: high"

Everything was being turned to chaos before Starscream even managed to leave his seat. Seething, he stormed to his computer console, fingers gliding flawlessly over the keys.

"Making everything in your quarters voice-controlled was the best thing you ever did, Screamer! Can you rig mine to do this?"

Starscream finished typing his last few keys, disabling all voice commands within his room. The energon dispenser stopped dripping the pink energy, the fans stopped, the temperature stopped his steady rise, and the lights dimmed to a comfortable glow. He grimaced and rounded on Skywarp for the second time that day, hand on his hips.

"Peace, Screamer. Peace."

Starscream clenched one hand into a fist and pulled back his arm.

Skywarp tried futilely to curl into himself, though it did not do any good by the time Starscream smashed the first against the top of his head.

Skywarp moaned pathetically. "I don't understand this savagery, Screamer. Must we really resort to domestic violence? I already lost my ability to walk- must I lose my formal dinner etiquette as well?"

"This is merciful compared to the scene playing in my processor! I swear that if I have to look at you again for the rest of the cycle, I will beat you until your head is hanging by a wire!"

"That does not sound healthy."

Starscream raised his fist threateningly, making Skywarp cringe away.

"Alright Alright! Go back to your tinkering and keep your violence away from my _head_! I can't even defend myself!"

"You are pathetic." Starscream snarled as he walked back to his desk to continue his tinkering, though it proved difficult due to his hands shaking in a combination of frustration and anger. The shaking subsided, however, and besides the occasional incoherent mumble from Skywarp's general direction, which Starscream knew could not be helped, Skywarp kept true to his silence…

For a while.

Starscream, who had moved onto the reassembling process on his nullray, was jarred from his trance by an irritating clicking noise. It took him all of thirty seconds before the clicking forced him to slowly stand and throw yet another deadly glare over his shoulder. He could have turned off his audials, absolutely, but the mere knowledge that Skywarp was still being a nuisance did not allow him to ignore him in peace.

He just wanted Skywarp to shut up without giving him the satisfaction of freedom.

Skywarp was looking absently around the room, obliviously clicking his denta together to fill the otherwise silent room. Starscream almost had to applaud him for his ability to be insufferably bothersome at _all times_, no matter the circumstances. It took true dedication to be so nauseatingly _annoying_.

Skywarp finally took notice of Starscream's upright position and sent his absent stare to meet Starscream's furious one, clicking his denta together only once more before closing his mouth tightly. He inhaled.

"You have 680 wall panels."

Starscream did not move.

"And 200 floor panels."

A flicker flashed across Starscream's optics.

"And 193 ceiling panels. How the slag. Does. That. Work? It is driving me crazy."

Starscream silently sat back down and picked up a wrench from his workbench. He continued his work as if nothing had happened.

The blessed silence was predictably demolished.

"My nose is itchy."

Starscream tensed up.

"Screamer. I said my nose is itchy, Starscream. Fix it."

"Oh I'll fix it alright…" The air commander growled, contemplating eighteen different ways to effectively remove Skywarp's face plates, tear off his nose, and annihilate it via welder, nuclear devices, crushing, burning, throwing, or a combination of all of the above.

"And your asymmetrical ceiling-to-floor-panel-ratio. What is the _deal_? Did Soundwave forget how to count when he designed this place? Did that dumbaft Ramjet put it together? It is seriously making my processor implode!"

"Would you like to know what is making MY processor implode…?" Starscream made a face, but did not turn around. Once again, he was being baited, and Skywarp did not care. What was worse was that Skywarp knew that Starscream knew that Skywarp did not care. Skywarp would bait him and get a rise out of the consequences, even if it meant minor and superficial damage to his frame. The dark jet did not do well with silence, so he looked for entertainment born from the ashes of his inherent talent of being a nuisance.

Starscream had meant to take advantage of Skywarp's inability to handle silence; however, his innate instinct to lash out and cleanse himself of stupidity overrode his desire to _effectively_ make Skywarp suffer. The temptation of immediate gratification was just too strong.

In the end, they were simply fated to harass each other until one or the other resigned.

Skywarp sighed forlornly. "I feel like a moose head."

Starscream turned around, apparently adorned with a look of utmost confusion on his face, because Skywarp went on to explain.

"Humans shoot animals and hang their heads on their walls. Like moose."

Starscream furrowed his optic ridges.

"Barbarous."

"Yes… but I am currently a moose head displayed in a barbarian's room. I am your moose head, Screamer, and I hate it."

"Good. Because I hate you. Your suffering is my life fuel. Who needs energon when I can make your life miserable?"

Starscream frowned when Skywarp screwed up his face in a look of intense concentration.

"I'M JUST A POOR BOY, NOBODY LOVES ME!" He shouted more than he sang, lifting his vocalizer into a badly-executed falsetto. "HE'S JUST A POOR BOY FROM A POOR FAMILY! SPARE HIM-"

Starscream pulled a cloth out of his subspace, one second at his desk, the next standing next to the trapped frame, stuffing it into Skywarp's gaping mouth with extraordinary finesse. Though it was not enough to silence a mech due to the fact that their vocalizer did not completely rely on the functionality of the jaw or mouth to perform, it was enough to stun the darker seeker into a temporary silence.

"What. Did. I. Say. About. Singing…?" Starscream said quietly through clenched denta.

Skywarp spent a few moments attempting to spit out the cloth. "Not to."

Starscream nodded.

"And since when was that order no longer in practice?"

"Since you fragged me off. I think I have to right to dish out revenge."

"You truly think that you are in any position for revenge?

Skywarp tried to shrug, though he seemed to remember that he was unable to move his arms or shoulders.

"I don't really think about that kind of thing."

"Clearly." Starscream said dryly. "Now will you let me work, or would you like me to disable your vocalizer?"

"I'd like to use a lifeline." Skywarp smiled with faux-innocence that made Starscream want to gag. " I think… I'd like to go 50%-50%... Oh! Wait wait wait! I'd like to call a friend."

"That might work if you had any friends."

"TC likes me."

"Thundercracker hates you."

"Naw, here's the thing—TC hates everyone, but he hates me less than everyone else. So it's only logical that, by comparison, he likes me."

"Your logic is severely flawed."

"Well yeah. You keep smacking me over the cranial unit- what do you expect?"

"Not much of a change."

"I'm starting to get the impression that you think I'm an idiot or something."

"Says the mech stuck in my _wall_."

Skywarp moodily tried to shrink in on himself, but given his position, failed to do so.

"It was a glitch. It's not fair, not fair, not faiiirrrr…" Skywarp mumbled, letting his head fall forward with the pull of gravity. "I can't move a microinch, my audios are buzzing from the quiet, I think my forearm has fallen off but there is no way to tell, and I am _bored_. I don't deserve to be here. I wasn't even aiming for here. I just wanted energon, but guess what I got instead? The Inferno. I never knew that the Inferno of legend was so wall-shaped and boring. Hey... Screamer, get those oversized nail clippers away from me!"

He shouted a high-pitched cry of alarm as Starscream grabbed one of the vents on the side of his head, halting any attempt to wriggle from the firm grip.

"Get those hedge clippers out of my face! No! Stop! I challenge you to a dance-off! I will-"

Skywarp's vocaliazer was immediately cut off with a small static buzz as Starscream severed the main line to his vocal component. Skywarp opened his mouth to speak once more, before looking up at Starscream with a look of spark-breaking shock. He once again tried to speak, but only managed to shoot a couple of sparks from the cut wire.

"You have lost your vocalizing rights."

After a scrutinizing look-over, Starscream nodded his approval, turning his back to Skywarp. He could feel a look of malice boring into his back, but he ignored it. He pressed a button on his arm, speaking after a short pause.

"Starscream to Thundercracker."

A small speaker on his arm sounded to life.

'_This is Thundercracker. What do you want?'_

"Come get Skywarp."

Starscream tapped his foot once or twice in impatience as Thundercracker took his time to reply.

'… _I'm busy.'_

Starscream resigned himself to sitting back down in his chair, propping his feet on his desk next to his half-fixed null ray. "That…" he all but purred. "-was not a request."

_'Starscream, I am on duty.'_

"I will tell Ramjet to relieve you. Now if you do not get your shiny silver aft to my quarters this instant and get this Primus-smelting, pit-spawn, rusted junk-heap of an unrefined nuisance _out of my wall_, I will track you down, disassemble you, and rebuild you into a pylon."

He could hear Thundercracker cursing softly in Cybertronian, and felt the smallest sense of satisfaction from it.

'_Do it yourself. If you have time to comm. me, you certainly have time to do something on your own for once.'_

"I'm busy." Starscream said smugly.

'_What do I look like, his warden?' _Thundercracker snapped.

"Yes."

'_Well I'm not. It's not my wall, therefore, it is not my problem.'_

"I command it, Thundercracker."

Starscream heard more cursing over the line, and smirked.

He loved pulling rank.

'_Fine.'_ His underling practically growled. _'Thundercracker out.'_

* * *

><p>"So he cannot speak."<p>

"Not a sound."

"And he's stuck in your wall."

"Indeed."

"Where he can do no harm."

"Hrmmm.."

"Remind me again why you want him out so bad? He is silent, he is out of trouble, he is not breaking anything, quoting comic books, or leaving nitric acid in inconvenient locations…"

"Yes, it almost seems too good to be true. However, I admit that he is getting low on energy and has bothered me long enough. I would love to see him offlined as much as you, but the consequences are simply too troublesome. Get him out of my sight."

"I am just going to let you know right now—whatever he does for retaliation is absolutely none of my responsibility."

Skywarp glared venom at his trinemates. His mouth was tightly shut, his optics were slits, and he had not moved a centimeter since his vocalizer had been cut off. Thundercracker and Starscream paid him no mind.

"Do not worry about that." Starscream put his fists on his hips, looking down at Skywarp with an air of superiority. "He at least has the mental capacity to link action to consequence."

Skywarp made a defiant buzzing sound from the vicinity of his throat, a single spark feebly leaping to the ground from the cut wire.

Thundercracker vented a sigh, pulling a nearly filled energon cube from his subspace. The best way to get Skywarp from Starscream's wall without too much damage was to either cut him loose, or simply give him energy and warp himself out of the situation and retain some menial shreds of dignity. Though Skywarp did not deserve it, Thundercracker had chosen the latter. Starscream did not care, so long as he did not have to look at either of them for the rest of the terrestrial week.

"Here you go hotshot." Thundercracker said, tilting it in a way that would allow Skywarp to drink from it. "Just drink it and get the slag out of here."

Skywarp turned his head away, pressing his lips tighter together.

Thundercracker sent a worried and slightly confused glance towards Starscream before following Skywarp's head with the cube with the intention of making it once again available to consume.

Skywarp looked huffily to the opposite direction.

Thundercracker pulled it away, looking exasperated.

"Are you really doing this to me, Warp? Really?"

Skywarp snorted his reply through his vents.

"You rusting codpiece, would you just try to be a mature individual for once?"

Skywarp stuck out his metallic tongue for a split second, before returning his insolent sulk to his immediate right.

"Fine." Thundercracker stepped away, and thrust the cube at Starscream. "I'm done. I'm not his keeper, not do I want to be. He can stay in your wall for all I care."

Starscream did not take the cube, instead choosing to cross his arms over his chassis.

"What IS this pathetic display of insolence?" Starscream fumed.

Thundercracker raised an optic ridge.

"A tantrum. You should know—you have them daily. Congratulations. A member of your elite is acting like a spoiled fledgling."

Starscream tightened his jaw cable.

Skywarp hummed his self-satisfied pleasure.

"Thundercracker."

Thundercracker tilted his head in acknowledgement.

"Hand me my buzz saw."

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><p><strong>AN:** I think I'm done with this short novel. I wasn't kidding when I said that all I had to do was sleep and write. So happy birthday, merry Valentines day, and St. Patrick's day bless you. May this chapter help you get through another day like it did for me. :)

Maybe one of these days I'll temporarily abandon 'ludicrous' and write 'serious'. At least, I _intend_ to. Good intentions are always a winner in my book. I also decided that bringing in other Decepticons into the picture might be a good idea, but then I think about how exclusive the niches within the Decepticon base seem to be... At least for me. They only seem to communicate with each other on a need-to-know basis, not for recreational purposes.

Anyone else notice how often I abuse italics? I realized that it is because I thrive off of emphasizing my excessive sarcasm. I love italics. I would probably buy them a drink if I could.

**On my last note: I truly appreciate you guys. :) Genuinely truly. Until next time. 3**


	8. Tossing Ravage

So everyone has been bringing up the fact that Skywarp gets no love from his wingmates… Unfortunately, despite my good intentions, nothing in this chapter is going to indicate otherwise, because instead of a promp that would give me the opportunity to write about their skewed loyalty to each other, my prompt was…

'_Tossing Ravage'_.

I am going to take full advantage of this prompt and abuse every privilege I own. Every. Single. One.

Maybe the next chapter. :) Also, may I please take this moment to express my adoration and gratitude towards you guys for reading these silly compilations of brain-vomit? For your feedback? For your encouragement and wellwishes? Because truly, I am honestly appreciative of each and every one of you for taking the time out of your day to read these. :] And a very special thank you to all of those who have reviewed— I really get a kick out of knowing what is going through your head, because obviously you know way too well what is going through mine! So without further ado!

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><p><strong>Title:<strong> Tossing Ravage

**Characters: **Starscream,Thundercracker, & Skywarp (Co Starring: Ravage)

**Genre:** Humor

**Summary:** One cliché, and a flying cat later…

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><p>Tossing Ravage<p>

"Primus CONDEMN it to the inferno pit of legend!"

"We are so slagged…"

"That could have gone better…"

"-creation of a stripped screw! Smelt-fragging, tar-consuming, oily-nosed LUGNUTS!"

"Soooo slagged…."

"Rusted skidplate of a scrap-heap -dwelling philistine!"

"Megatron is going to _murder_ us…."

"_Megatron_? Only if there's anything left by the time Soundwave gets a hold of us."

"-Outdated malfunctioning fuelsucking spawn of a rust-embellished sanitation drone!"

"Getting a little creative there, aren't we Starscream?"

"We are dead mechs." Skywarp whimpered, staring into space with both hands on his head. "One pede already in the Inferno. Next in line for the slaughterhouse. Is your existence supposed to flash before your optics before you offline? Because I am having flashbacks of that one time that I was _alive_."

"-Slag it _all_!"

Starscream paced, curses passing unfiltered through his mouth as his hands twitched in a mixture of nervousness and irritation. His voice never wavered in the midst of his cursing spree. Skywarp looked troubled, fidgeting nervously with rapidly flickering optics. Thundercracker's arms were crossed, gaze on the sky, looking weary.

In their own way, all three of them were experiencing severe anxiety.

"It's not fair!" Skywarp wailed, cracking under the pressure. "I don't want to die yet! Not by _Soundwave_! And believe me when I say that he is going to kill me! He _hates_ me, guys. _Loathes_. Did you know that he makes me hear voices in my head every once in a while? Just to remind me that he hates me?" Skywarp laughed shakily. "That just began after using Frenzy as a football. But when he finds out about _this_… He is either going to kill me, or force me to live and relive thousands of different, creative ways he _could_ kill me. In alphabetical order. A- Afflict me with the Plague. B- Burn me in the Inferno for all eternity. C- Cover me in Nitric Acid. D- "

"Shut up, Skywarp." Starscream covered his optics with a hand. "How often must I tell you to shut up? Really, do you have to babble? It is a system requirement? Because if it were not for your overactive vocalizer, I may have thought of a solution by now. But no. Your voice is like a piledriver to my processor, and we are no closer to finding-!"

"Oh shove off! You're babbling too, Screamer!"

"At least my babbling is not useless and irritating!"

"Oh, yeah, 'sir-forces-toasters-to-malfunction-with-the-sound-of-his-voice'!" Skywarp scoffed.

"Would the_ both _of you shut up?" Thundercracker cut in sharply before energon could be spilled, though Starscream slunk down, vibrating with internalized rage. "The time that you two spend beating each other into cheese graters could be time that we can use to be productive and actually, ohhhh, I don't know..._ look for Ravage_." He said sternly, glowering at his wingmates.

"I don't need to beat Starscream into a cheese grater… he can already grate cheese with his voice alone…." Skywarp mumbled, reflexively side-stepping Starscream's fist aimed directly for his head less than a moment later. Thundercracker looked vexed, but tolerated Skywarp as he ducked behind his frame, which was then used as a shield against Starscream's potential null-ray shaped wrath. Thankfully, Starscream seemed content to simply point his gun and glare daggers through Thundercracker's chassis, as if hoping that his stare would penetrate through the blue metal and straight into Skywarp.

"As I was saying before I developed the desire to permanently disfigure Skywarp…" Starscream growled lowly, his usual screech lowered to a severe tenor. "-Ravage is not offline. We would have found his shell by now. His communication line has just been severed. It_ is _possible…_ very_ possible that he may have gone off on his own in search of safety. However, if we do not find him soon…"

"We're never going to be able to return to base. Never." Skywarp keened unhelpfully from his hiding spot behind his grumpy wingmate. "Soundwave would kill us. Cold blooded murder. No one would ever find our frames. No one would hear us scream."

"It doesn't help that Ravage's livelihood depends on staying hidden. He's probably doing this on purpose. He hates the both of you and wants Soundwave to kill us." Thundercracker ran a hand down his faceplate, his engine expressing an anxious rev. "I hate you all."

"I am not partial to you two, either." Starscream lowered his null ray and turned his back towards his underlings to face the expansive forest before them. He looked put-off. "You are the ones who should have been watching him!"

"I _was_ watching him!" Skywarp scowled vehemently. "I watched Jazz fling him about three miles that way." He gestured towards the general direction. "Then crash somewhere."

"Don't you _dare_ pin it on us this time, Starscream. You had equal responsibility in losing him." Thundercracker said accusingly.

Starscream glared over his shoulder.

Though there was a strong dislike between the Cassetticons and the Seekers—well, more notably between Skywarp, Starscream, and the Cassetticons—there was no denying that they worked well together when they were not bickering. Megatron recognized this, and Soundwave tolerated it. The Seekers were fast and able to transport cargo, the Cassettes were lithe, small, and able to infiltrate a wide diversity of places, and together they were surprisingly dynamic. In short, the mission that had begun as a simple infiltrate-and-investigate intended to remain completely unnoticed turned into an unfortunate meeting…

The three Autobots were not supposed to be at the small, hidden research laboratory in the middle of nowhere on the outskirts of an ancient forest, but they were. The Seekers did not let that small monkey wrench put a halt on their mission. Ravage was sent in to do what he did best, but was, in an unlikely stroke of misfortune, discovered mid-infiltration. Predictably, a small skirmish began, and just as Ravage transformed into his cassette form to be tucked safely away in Thundercracker's canopy for their grand escape, Jazz preformed a spectacular dive and managed to get his hands on the small spy before hurling the cassette with a surprising amount of strength over the thick of the expansive forest. Everyone stopped and stared, mesmerized at how _far_ the small spy flew. Desperate to leave and begin their search, the Seekers managed to damage the Autobots just enough to ensure that they would not be followed during their search, but they knew that it was only a matter of time before reinforcements showed up.

Naturally, in an unfortunate display of their typical luck, their link to Ravage had been cut off (probably within the catch-toss-and-crash fiasco), including their ever-important lock on the jaguar's energy signal. They were blindly looking for Megatron's most valuable spy, and one of Soundwave's beloved cassettes. If they did not find the small spy before the Autobot reinforcements showed up…

Skywarp crossed his arms in thought, desperately clawing through the bad to look for the silver lining- such was the way of Skywarp. "He has only been missing for a little while…" he offered a feeble smile, though it remained unseen by his wingmates, who found more comfort in staring unseeingly into the distance. "Not that long. He is capable of taking care of himself, right? He couldn't have gotten too far. We just have to find him before Soundwave finds us."

"We had better. What the slag would we tell him? 'Sorry Soundwave, we lost your giant metal cat after the Autobots decided to use him as a Frisbee. Don't worry, we'll buy you a new one'? Yeah, I don't think that is going to go over very well." Thundercracker huffed, optics searching the sky as if expecting to see Ravage fly by, though he guessed that the flight that he cat had just experienced would probably be his last for a very long while.

"We didn't lose him. We just… can't find him." Skywarp mumbled, looking slightly unconvinced himself. "He's gotta be somewhere around here. It's not like they Frisbeed him off of the planet. Though I admit, he went _flying_. Even I'm envious." He finished, barking a laugh. Thundercracker and Starscream sent him an identical wry look, though it was not enough to force him to relinquish his grin. "Flying kitty. Heh."

Thundercracker sighed long-sufferingly, fists planted on his hips, and eyes sweeping over the wilderness. "Well Starscream...? What next?"

Starscream frowned, deep in thought. They had already swept the area by flight, staying low above the trees. Their scanners had not identified anything out of the ordinary. They only had one choice that would keep them from altering the nearby Autobots of their position.

"We walk. That way." Starscream gestured, looking less than thrilled at the idea. There was nothing but trees and nature, which was not easy to travel through with such broad appendages. Not only was it not an easy path, it was also very _naturey_. Mud, and sticks, and bugs, and moss, and sap. All things of nature that seemed to be attracted to their crevices and joints. Starscream glanced mournfully at his wings, imaging the abuse that they were about to endure.

"_Walk_? And do what- call for him the good old-fashioned way?" Skywarp asked disgustedly, finally abandoning his hiding spot to stand next to Thundercracker.

"Yes. We have no choice." Starscream looked irked at the honesty behind his statement, quite used to being able to track his comrades with his radar alone. Unfortunately, without a signal to track, they were left to search in a most primitive manner: on foot.

"Well we are _definitely_ advanced sentient robots from outer space, aren't we?" Thundercracker mumbled dryly, earning him equally dry stares. He ignored them in favor of brooding in the opposite direction.

"Are you incapable of optimism, TC?" Skywarp frowned and wilted moodily. "Because really, I don't need your help remembering how badly this could turn out. I already know Soundwave is going to use our lifeless, rusting shells as wall ornaments and punching bags for his kids."

"My turbo-dog ate my pleasantry-chip when I was a fledgling. My creators never hugged me. Now there is nothing else but negative, bitter resentment. I've forgotten how to smile."

"You two, shut your vocalizers and _move_. We are wasting time." Starscream demanded, setting an example and commencing his self-important saunter through the forest of large, ancient trees without looking to see if his wingmates followed. Skywarp shrugged at his blue wingmate, immediately falling in step behind their air commander, followed by Thundercracker who looked for all of the world as if he wanted to dig himself a shallow grave and die in it.

They searched for all of five minutes before their calls turned to demands, their demands turned to threats, and their threats turned to desperate pleas for Ravage to reveal himself. Thundercracker and Skywarp shared several nervous glances throughout the five minutes, though if Starscream was in any way anxious, he did not reveal it. He trekked ahead of them, exuding confidence and finesse that should not have been possible to uphold in such cramped, unsanitary, cellulose-filled conditions.

"I stepped on a weasel…" Thundercracker lamented to himself after another two minutes of silence.

"Here kitty kitty! Rava~ge! I have a half-crushed energon goodie for you!" Skywarp shouted through a cupped hand, though Thundercracker batted it down irately.

"Stop screaming in my audial."

Skywarp's optics narrowed. "I'm not screaming in your audial, weasel-foot. I'm screaming at the vegetation and potentially Ravage."

"Well then face the _vegetation_, not me." He grunted.

Skywarp cupped both of his hands around his mouth, pressing them straight against Thundercracker's audio receptor. "_WHATEVER YOU SAY, TC_!" He screamed, smirking as the blue Seeker stumbled to the side with a pained expression on his face, clamping a hand over his abused audial.

"You rusted, uncultured _boor_!" Thundercracker snarled while Skywarp grinned alluringly.

"Well what can I say. I'm one in a million." He said, thrusting a thumb at himself.

"Yet you won't be missed when I end you." Thundercracker glared exasperatedly towards the warper, absently massaging his audial receptor. "I'm not standing by you anymore." He said resentfully, catching up with Starscream in several purposeful strides. He ignored Skywarp's cackling laughter behind him.

They walked further into the thick of the trees; the tall, awkwardly shaped structures pressed in on them, caught on their wings and intakes, and forced them to maneuver clumsily through the tangle of branches. They each found themselves quietly complaining about the large variety of dirt and leaves caught in their joints and crevices, and Starscream, louder than his subordinates, mourned the scratches to his paintjob, but still they pressed on after a prudent reminder from Skywarp that the discomforts were nothing compared to what Soundwave would have in store for them if the cat was not found.

They batted at the branches, squeezed through sap, pulled vines from their knees, and Skywarp had managed to become a new home for a swarm of bees after their hive got caught on a ridge protruding from his hip. He swatted at them insistently, wincing every time one of them somehow managed to get inside of his circuitry. "This would be a lot easier if the_ fragging_ Autobots didn't have to _sever_ his fragging_ communication_ line. When did they get_ smart? When?_" Skywarp moaned loudly, tearing his arm from a jumble of vines that trapped it mid-swat. "Slagging bees! Fragging FIRE ANTS!" He halted at the sound of a loud 'squelch', sighing irately before glancing behind him. "And now... my foot... is stuck in the mud. Fab. I'm pretty sure I have room_ somewhere_ for the swamp monster if he wants to move in. As long as the bees and ants make room."

"I do not feel sorry for you." Thundercracker snapped, still bitter about his sore audial and getting sick enjoyment from watching the insects swarm him.

Skywarp glared at his friend's back, though it was replaced with a painful grimace as a branch previously caught on the blue Seeker's wing was released, promptly slapping Skywarp across the face. He furiously swung his hand down on the branch, snapped it off of the tree, yanked his foot from the mud, stomped both of his pedes on the stick, and disintegrated it with his clean thruster for good measure.

Starscream's cool façade was extinguished when he let out a lurid noise of irritation after stumbling over a log for the umpteenth times, glaring menacingly as he whipped around and _kicked _the offending log with vigor. It whizzed past Skywarp's head, missing it by a mere hair, and impacted the trunk of a large tree behind him. The log exploded against the trunk of the tree with a 'KRAK', splintering into numerous pieces. Skywarp leapt to the side with an undignified cry, though failed to avoid the rain of splinters.

"Screamer, watch where you're kicking things!"

"I _was _watching where I kicked it, Skywarp." Starscream mocked crossly. "I watched myself kick it past your head! I guess I should have aimed it a little more to the left!"

Skywarp squeezed his hands into fists. "Well maybe if you had better aim in the first place, you wouldn't have missed!"

"Maybe if the both of you were useful at anything but being self-centered, hedonistic parasites, we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place!" Thundercracker berated, already in bad temper, though feeding even more off of the tension. "But no!" He threw out his arms in irritation, palms facing up. He noticed sap on them and glowered, wiping them vigorously on his thigh plating and fixing a solid glare at the other jets. "Instead of covering me like you were supposed to, you just sat there like two dribbling clods and watched them grab Ravage!"

"Hey, we _did_ cover you!" Skywarp thrust out his index finger. "I just got distracted by the _amazing flying cat_."

"It was _your_ cockpit Ravage was aiming for, Thundercracker." Starscream sniffed, arms crossing tightly over his chassis. "You had _plenty_ of time to get to him before the Autobots!"

"It wasn't fully my responsibility!" Thundercracker gave up trying to rub the sap off once realizing that it only spread the sticky substance. He placed one hand on his chassis, and gestured widely with his other arm. "His safety was entrusted to all of us!"

"Well too bad I hate felines—especially evil, metal felines encasing the essence of depravity itself. Maybe if he was shaped like something appealing, like an energon cube, I'd like him more!" Skywarp threw out his arms in front of him, wincing as his elbow made a grinding noise. He heatedly picked out a large piece of splintered wood from the joint, throwing it to the ground in disgust.

"Oh yeah, then he'd _taste_ like evil too. Not to mention give you a horrible case of indigestion." Starscream rolled his optics melodramatically.

"Well I'm glad he has gone missing off of the planet! I never want to see that nuisance again." Skywarp exhaled sharply. "Now let's get the pit out of here. _Please_. I am _so sick of trees_."

"Oh yeah, and go where? Hopefully off-planet, because there is no way we are going back to base unless you are prepared to stare deep into Soundwave's optics and explain exactly why Ravage did not return with us." Thundercracker snorted, batting away a branch near his face and snarling as it snapped back and rebound against the side of his helm.

"Soundwave does not scare _me_." Starscream grimaced, pausing for a second before adding- "Though we are not going back to base without Ravage."

Skywarp laughed, loud and harsh. "HA! Who are you trying to kid? Soundwave scares the everliving motor oil out of you!"

Thundercracker opened his mouth to take Skywarp's side, but no sound left his vocalizer as his audials picked up a soft, hissing noise. He furrowed his brow and craned his head towards the noise, almost blaming the abuse that his audial had suffered. He ruled it out immediately.

"Soundwave is nothing to be afraid of—he is just a pawn for Megatron to control. Like a mindless drone."

"If he didn't scare you, you would just say 'slag it' and leave the cat-turd behind! Because I know for a _fact_ that you aren't looking for him out of respect of comradeship."

"Skywarp, if you value your-"

"Wait!" Thundercracker suddenly shouted, throwing up a hand to halt the bickering. Surprisingly, the bickering did stop and two slightly flickering and fritzed pairs of optics focused on the blue Seeker. "Did you hear that…?" he mumbled softly, his lips barely moving.

"Hear _what_?" Starscream snapped in several shades of temper. Thundercracker opened his mouth to reply, but once again, a metallic hiss rang softly through the air. All three Seekers stood at attention, all audios craned towards the noise.

"That." Thundercracker muttered absently.

"I know that hiss. It's the same one Ravage uses when he is about to emulate the Jaws of Death." Skywarp tilted his head.

"Ravage!" Thundercracker practically slumped in relief, following the sound of the violent hissing. He halted below a tall, broad tree, squinting up in an attempt to see into the leafy branches. Sure enough, Ravage was in the tree, clinging tightly to one of the sturdy middle branches with what could only be described as a death grip. His arms and legs surrounded the thick branch, claws dug deep into the wood, his optics narrow, and his jaws set in a perpetual snarl.

Overall, he looked like he had suffered a _very_ bad day.

"Thank the elders you're alright." Thundercracker crooned, feeling Skywarp's presence behind him.

"Huh. There you are, you mangy metal cat. We were about to leave you, too."

"Skywarp. Shut your pipe-hole or you are going to make him angry." Thundercracker glowered. Skywarp peered up through the leaves.

"He's already angry."

"He's scared."

"No he's not. He's angry." He tilted his head. "Well, what are you waiting for? Get your shiny aft down here, you demon-cat. Before Soundwave pops a servo." Skywarp said. All he received was a violent hiss from the vicinity of the branch.

"I think he's stuck." Thundercracker stated simply. Starscream, who was also observing the situation, sent him a narrow glance.

"He is not stuck. He is a feline, for Primus' sake. He is agile for a living."

"Really, Starscream. I think he is stuck."

"Hold on a tik," Skywarp said, pulling a half-crushed energon goodie from his subspace. He glanced at it thoughtfully and took a large bite out of it before retreating back a step. He aimed carefully through the maze of leaves and branches, one optic shuttered and glossa slightly poking through his lips in concentration. He locked onto his target.

"Hey, Fuzzybutt! Catch!" He called before hurling the energon goodie at the black jaguar with more force than necessary. It flew threw the air towards the cat with deadly accuracy, though only ricocheted off of him and fell anticlimactically back to the ground at the base of the tree with a dull thump. The three Seekers stared at the fallen energon goodie. Skywarp frowned. "Yep. He's stuck. And he wasted my ration."

Once again, Ravage only hissed.

"Brilliant logic, Skywarp. 'He must be stuck, so I think I'll throw something at him and see what happens'. Truly, I am astounded." Starscream's voice dripped in sarcasm, though Skywarp took no offense, seeming perfectly happy that he had just been given the opportunity to throw something at the small spy without reaping the immediate consequences of mauling.

"Don't throw things at him. One of us just has to fly up there and get him down—simple as that." Thundercracker suggested.

"Fantastic plan. Why didn't I think of that?" Starscream drawled, his sarcasm persistently apparent. "It is going to be one of you two." He said defiantly. "I am scratched enough as it is."

"I'll do it." Skywarp said eagerly. "He wasted my time and my energon goodie. So he is now going to owe me time, fuel, and his life. Can't beat that."

"I think you had better let me-" Thundercracker tried to say, though was predictably cut off.

"Don't start, TC. Be back in a sec!"

Before any more complaints could be voiced, Skywarp ignited his thrusters and fought his way through the mess of branches and leaves. Thundercracker watched Skywarp fight through the thicket of wood in anxiety, while Starscream watched in cool anticipation. It took a minute, but Skywarp finally managed to clear a path with his girth, finding himself face-to-face with Ravage. He grinned toothily.

"It's alright, Ravage, Warp's here to make it all better." He murmured in what he hoped to be a soothing manner, though by the biting glare that the cat pierced him with, he doubted that he had succeeded. He reached out his hand carefully.

"Come on. I'll get you down. I promise I won't let you crash to Earth and explode into a million metal pieces. Honestly. I'm already on Soundwave's bad side."

Ravage lifted his paw for a split second to claw at Skywarp's outstretched hand, snarling viciously before returning to his clinging position. Skywarp yanked back his hand, jaw dropping.

"Why you-!"

"Skywarp, stop it. He is going to bite you." Thundercracker called from the ground, looking uneasy.

"Oh shove it, TC, he's not going to bite m- OW! You fragging slag-donor! You BIT me! TC! He_ bit_ me!"

"I told you!" Thundercracker rumbled through clenched denta. "He's scared, Warp. You do not poke frightened cats. Especially when they have jaws that can crush your head."

"Well I have a fragging cannon the size of his-!"

"Get down from there this instant, Skywarp, before you stupidity keeps us here longer than necessary." Starscream called, torn between sick amusement and irritation. "You are only making things worse. Thundercracker will get him down."

Skywarp sneered down at them, holding his injured hand and trying to keep hold of his injured pride. "No way! I am going to get this cat down if it kills me!"

Ravage let out a venomous snarl, and only seemed to cling tighter to the branch.

"Funny thing is, is that it probably _will _kill you." Thundercracker shook his head and ignited his own thrusters, hovering near Skywarp's legs. He tugged on Skywarp's foot, forcing the purple jet to direct his determined glare towards Thundercracker.

"Move. It's my turn."

"No! It's still my turn. Stop being impatient." Skywarp shifted his weight, and began to fight sideways through the brush.

"Whoever's turn it is, _get. him. dow_n!" Starscream called from the ground, his screechy voice reverberating off of the surrounding trees. "Soundwave is trying to establish communication!"

"Working on it!" Skywarp called, making his way behind Ravage's position.

"Skywarp, be careful! You are going to set the tree on fire!" Thundercracker scolded, leaning away from Skywarp's carelessly ignited thrusters.

"So?" He grunted. "You don't like trees, remember?"

"We're here for Ravage, not to start a forest fire!"

"Only YOU can prevent forest fires." Skywarp mimicked in a deep voice, his upper torso hidden within the leaves.

"Don't be stupid!" Thundercracker growled, once again tugging on Skywarp's leg. "Get on the ground, right now!"

"Don't tell me what to do. I'm almost there. He can't bite me if I get him from behind."

"That is a stupid idea!"

"Is it really?"

"Yes! He is going to struggle and you will drop him!"

"What do you think I am? A yutz?" Skywarp mumbled to himself, finally situating himself behind Ravage, who had not moved an inch except to follow Skywarp's progress with his optics. His ears were pressed flat against his head, and his teeth were bared dangerously.

"Look, Litterbox, we can do this the easy way, or the fun way. I can either sit on this branch and cause it to snap and fall to the ground without anyone to catch you… or… you can let me pick you up and carry you down to safety, where you will apologize for wasting my energon goodie and allowing the Autobots to use you as a Frisbee. Guess which is the fun way."

Ravage snarled and spit his displeasure, but still did not move. Skywarp leaned his elbows on the base of the branch, causing it to droop several degrees downwards. Ravage's hissing came to a halt, and if possible, clung even tighter to the wood, as if it was his last lifeline. He began to vibrate in anxiety, jostling the leaves around him. Thundercracker clenched his denta.

"Skywarp!" Thundercracker _pulled _Skywarp's legs with enough force to tug him down to his level, which Skywarp did with a cry of surprise as he scarcely managed to regain his balance.

"-The slag, TC?"

"Shut up!" Thundercracker cuffed him angrily over the head. "Stay! Here." He pointed his index finger downwards to signify that 'here' actually _meant_ 'here'. To solidify his command, he turned his head towards their grounded commander. "Starscream, make him stay."

Starscream did not acknowledge them, seeming to be in the middle of a heated conversation on the comm. He looked nervous. Thundercracker took that as a sign to hurry.

Skywarp mouth opened with the beginnings of an angry retort, but was instantly silenced with a careless kick to his faceplate as Thundercracker rose to Ravage's level. The purple jet held his nose and watched the blue jet rise for a moment before landing heavily, on the verge of a tantrum.

"Hey…" Thundercracker began somewhat lamely as he came face-to-face with Ravage. The abused Jaguar only bared his teeth, making the Seeker sigh and lean away ever so slightly. "Yeah, I know." He said, brushing a leafy branch from his face for what seemed like the millionth time that day. "Skywarp's an idiot with all the poise of an atomic bomb. I promise I'll get you down without throwing fuel at you. I'll also cage him for two weeks if it makes you feel better."

Ravage stared at him through livid optics. Thundercracker hesitated a moment before pressing closer to the small spy. "Here's an idea…" he murmured in a pacifying croon, opening his canopy near the cat. "Get close and transform—I will store you away. That way you don't have to look down. I promise I am not going to let you fall."

Ravage's livid stare went flat, which Thundercracker could not quite tell was a bad sign or a good sign.

"Forget it, TC. Just leave him!" Skywarp called bitterly, obviously offended by the cat's humiliating rejection.

"Don't you dare!" Starscream howled a moment after shutting off his comm. link. "I had to tell Megatron that we were forced to land for repairs. Do you know how demeaning that was? If we do not get back soon, you two are as _good as scrap." _His engine snarled savagely, enunciating the seriousness of the situation.

"Us? What about _you_?"

"I'm indispensable."

"The slag you are!" Skywarp cried.

Thundercracker shook his head with a sigh, once again holding out a hand coaxingly towards the scared jaguar with a new sense of urgency. "Come on Ravage." He began, his voice soft. "I swear by every deity known to Cybertron that you will not fall. I will bludgeon Skywarp with this branch if that is what it takes to keep him away from you. I will take you back to Soundwave perfectly intact, without another scratch on you. Also, no one else will use you as a Frisbee. Not on my watch. I've learned my lesson. Deal?"

Ravage blinked slowly, his lithe frame as still as a terrified statue. Thundercracker felt his confidence waning after a long moment of being subject to Ravage's piercing stare, and lowered his hand just as Ravage began the excruciatingly slow process of using one claw at a time to move from a branch-hugging position, to a slightly-standing position. A few times he wobbled dangerously, though he was not about to topple over with his claws so deeply imbedded within the bark. Thundercracker reached out a few times to help, though his hand was promptly snapped at by angry jaws. He patiently watched as, once Ravage was upright, he began to inch towards his open canopy, leaving large, potentially fatal claw marks with every step. A short eternity seemed to pass before Ravage was close enough to transform and hop safely into his cockpit, and the blue Seeker offered a comforting smile once he was a single stride away.

What he realized a moment to late was that it was too quiet…

Thundercracker and Ravage's false sense of security was instantly shattered as Skywarp's silhouette loomed behind the black cat with shadowed optics and a roguish grin. Ravage froze mid-step, optics wide in terror.

"_DON'T FALL_." Skywarp shouted in a gravelly voice.

It took less than a second for Ravage to instinctively transform into his altmode as his self-preservation programming took over. It took two more seconds for the cat-turned-cassette to topple off of the branch, bounce off of Thundercracker's hand as he reached out in a desperate attempt to catch him, and clatter on the Earthy ground with a sickening thud. Thundercracker's mouth was agape in disbelief, and Skywarp's optics were wide in either surprise or horror as the cassette, though it lacked optics, seemed to_ glower _up at them.

"_WHAT DID YOU IDIOTS DO_?" Starscream's disembodied voice screeched from below, causing a flurry of movement as flocks of birds and other such wildlife evacuated the premises with admirable haste.

The two Seekers snapped from their daze as a flock of birds shot past them. They looked at each other, one gaze irritated, the other sheepish. Skywarp landed self-consciously at the base of the tree, followed by Thundercracker, whose posture was rigid.

Starscream's hands were on his helm, intakes violently processing air, and absolutely fritzing.

"You two are in ABYSMAL trouble. _Abysmal_. _Slagging. Trouble_." He hissed furiously.

"_Skywarp_-" Thundercracker emphasized, glaring at the offender. "-is in abysmal slagging trouble… I was _this_ close to safely getting him out of the tree. _This_ close."

Skywarp had the courtesy to look guilty. "At least he's out of the tree…" he offered meekly, nodding towards the unresponsive cassetticon.

"And just _guess_ how Soundwave is going to take Ravage's report on just how exactly he_ got_ out of the tree." Starscream leveled him with an arid stare. "You are going to be hearing voices for the rest of your _menial. Slagging. Life_."

* * *

><p>AN: They squabble like six year olds, not high-ranking officers. X] What kind of army is Megatron running here?


End file.
